


Second Chances

by Trefoil_9



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: (hint: neither of these things work well at all), Angst and fluff and humor, Automatonophobia, Bad Ending, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Gavin Reed has cats, Gavin is terrified of androids and deals(?) with it by being very very angry, Gen, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Machine Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Maybe - Freeform, Mental Health Issues, PHHHCK, Post-Canon, RK900 sees Connor as his brother, Self-Harm, Swearing, Wow there really wasn't an & tag for RK900 n Reed this fandom is real thirsty for the sexy ships, alternatively: sharing a house with an unstable human and his four cats, idk if this one is going to go there but we'll definitely get some enemies to friends action, in gameplay terms this would be after a run where Connor befriends Hank but doesn't become Deviant, it's discussed anyway, lots of swearing bc Gavin, no beta we die like men, sharing a house with your despised coworker, tw for certain chapters I'll try to tag them at the beginning--, which works about as well as RK900 convincing himself that he's not deviant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2019-12-25 13:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18261914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trefoil_9/pseuds/Trefoil_9
Summary: Gavin Reed doesn't like things that look human but aren't, and he doesn't appreciate Captain Fowler making him choose between losing the job he's spent his life trying to get or having an android as his partner. Maybe if he can convince himself the thing's actually a person he can get used to it. Maybe.RK900 was not given a name. In the wake of the android uprisings of 2038, Cyberlife has decided to stop giving their models human names. So RK900 enters the world with only a mission, a serial number, and a human partner who hates him--not to mention a variety of disturbing glitches and some extremely unstable software.





	1. Hello My Name is Nameless

It was dark, and the streets were almost deserted when Gavin Reed left a downtown pet store and slouched toward the riverwalk. The store hosted some cats and dogs from a nearby shelter, and the shelter had received a dog named Sumo some time before; there was no breed listed, and the woman he’d talked to hadn’t known anything except that the dog was currently one of the animals up for adoption at the store, so that’s where he’d gone.

The dog had turned out to be a smallish black mutt, very friendly but hardly worth the drive. It wasn’t Hank’s Sumo. Gavin supposed he should be relieved, but it just made him frustrated. He knew he was getting desperate with this stupid dog hunt, but he didn’t like not being able to do anything.

He pulled his hood up to protect his ears from the cold, sat down on a bench and lit a cigarette, then struggled to open a bag of chips he’d bought at the register, swearing quietly. You’d think at least one thing could be easy. But no. His fucking Lays had betrayed him as well.

“You and I both know you’re mostly air and I will pop you like the balloon you are if we can’t do this the easy way,” he grumbled at the bag before finally opening it with an uneven tear and cramming a handful of chips into his mouth. His stomach lurched and he remembered that he hadn’t bothered to stop for dinner. He grabbed another handful of chips and stared moodily out at the crusts of ice forming at the edge of the river. It was a cold night. He tugged his hood down lower over his face and angrily tried to decide what to do with his mouth, smoke or eat. He settled for two puffs and a handful of chips, rinse and repeat.

Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. He’d had worse meals. The air was too cold to smell anything but fresh and clean, the streetlights glistened on a thin layer of newly-fallen snow, and there was no sound but the quiet crunch of footsteps approaching somewhere from his left. He glanced over, chewing. Then he stopped.

It looked a person, but it was _wrong_ , it stood too straight and it walked with a strange polished stiffness, almost gliding over the ground. If it weren’t for the sound of footsteps he’d be certain he was hallucinating it. The footsteps didn’t entirely rule it out, either; but his hallucinations didn’t usually come in shiny blue armbands.

He’d barely recovered from the initial shock when he got another one. The thing was looking _right. At. Him_. Its eyes were the color of the ice drowning in the river.

He dropped his chips and jumped up, sitting on the back of the bench instead of the seat. It was silly, but the height advantage made him feel a bit better.

“Hey,” he yelled at it. “What you want?”

It lifted its head a little, so it must have heard him, but it didn’t stop, and it didn’t look away. Now he realized that it wasn’t walking straight along the path, it was walking at an angle—off the path, towards _him_. He jumped up to his feet and drew his gun.

“WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!”

Now it slowed, raised its hands in a gesture of peace, and finally stopped, perhaps ten feet away.

“Detective Reed?”

“How the fuck do you know my name?”

“I am equipped with a facial recognition feature. My model is RK900. I’ve been sent by Cyberlife to assist you.”

Gavin sat down, still holding his gun. “Shit,” he said. “No fuckin’ way,” he said. He thought about it for a moment and then gestured with his gun at the thing. “That’s bullshit, no way.”

“Captain Fowler should have messaged you. Check your phone.”

“What? No, no. You want me to take out my phone so I’ll be distracted and you can jump on me?”

“...What would I gain by...jumping on you?” It said, and Gavin stood up again, back prickling. It seemed genuinely confused, but the way it _said it_ just made his hair stand on end. Seeing his movement, it frowned and held its hands up again, as if to reassure him that they were still empty. “You seem... uncomfortable, Detective. I am unarmed.”

“Like that makes a difference? I’ve seen what you shits can do.”

It looked him squarely in the eyes, standing perfectly still, like a puppet dangling in cut wires. “I am no deviant, Detective Reed. I am here to assist you.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. That Connor model was no deviant, either, and he still threw Lt. Anderson off a fucking roof.” The android’s LED cycled yellow for a moment. “What, did you hear about that?”

“I hadn’t heard, no. ‘Connor’ was my previous model. RK800?”

“Ah shit, is that what he was?” Gavin laughed, it was suddenly clear to him. “Is that why... oh, you _do_ look like him! God, you’ve both got the same stupid fucking face.” There were some clear differences—the new Connor had a sturdier build, heavier eyebrows, and those cold, cold eyes. The voice, too, was totally different; deeper and smoother. Still, the resemblance was uncanny, and he should have noticed it before now, if only the thing hadn’t snuck up on him in the middle of the night when he thought he was alone. He’d been too freaked out to think about what the thing actually looked like, aside from vaguely otherworldly and creepy. But that wasn’t surprising, he’d always thought that Connor looked otherworldly in the first place. Connor had been too pretty, he didn’t like it. It unnerved and infuriated him. When he looked human Gavin almost thought he liked him, then he’d suddenly remember what he was and feel sick.

...This guy, though.

“You’re a replacement Connor, is that it?” The thing nodded. “Ugh, great, just when I thought we were done with him. Hold on, why’d you come for me? What’s Fowler want?”

“I believe he plans to assign you to work with me.”

Gavin Reed glared at him, waiting for him to take it back. He did not. Gavin Reed knew perfectly well that this was the only plausible reason for a special prototype detective android appearing out here, had known before he asked, but he didn’t want to believe it.

“ _No_ he doesn’t. He _better_ not.”

The thing just looked at him, so he held his gun in one hand while he fished out his phone and glanced at it, keeping the android in his field of vision. Sure enough, he had several unread messages from Fowler.

“Fuck,” he said. He put his phone away without reading them. He thought about the gun, but finally put that away too. “Alright. New question, how the fuck did you find me?”

“I tracked your cell phone signal.”

“Shit. Androids can do that?”

“Yes.”

“I mean, is that _legal_?” He didn’t answer. Gavin was taking that as a “no” or at least a “not exactly.” And he didn’t like that. Make a computer that’s able to break the law at will and you’ve got a real menace on your hands. When’s it going to decide in its weird little machine-brain that it’s an appropriate moment to go rogue? You don’t know, and probably neither does the fucking machine. It’s a ticking time bomb. Gavin narrowed his eyes and hopped down off the bench. His foot brushed the chip bag and it crackled, reminding him that he’d dropped it. He picked it up and crammed it in a pocket. “OK, let’s go.” He gestured at it, and it started walking ahead of him. That made him feel better for all of two seconds, before he realized that it was making a beeline for his car, like it knew exactly which one it was. Of course it did, it was an android. He followed, seething. It was late, but Fowler often stayed late. If he drove fast...

He got lucky, Fowler was in the parking lot, talking with Officer Genevieve, a particular friend of his. Gavin drifted the car to a screeching stop, threw the parking break on and leapt out while Fowler was still turning his head to see what the disturbance was. He saw the man’s face freeze in recognition.

Gavin flung his arm out, gesturing over the roof of the car to the android getting out of the passenger’s side.

“Captain Fowler. Politely, whAT THE _FUCK_?”

Fowler sighed. “Good evening Reed. I see the RK900 found you.”

“Yeah, listen, next time I’m not answering my messages just leave me an angry voicemail or something, don’t send the goddamn Terminator after me.”

“Reed, listen, I need you to work with me here. This city is in chaos—”

“Wow, really? What else is new?”

“Don’t sass me. You have eyes, you have ears, you know our jobs have just gotten harder since the uprising. And now Hank’s gone.”

“Yeah, heard anything from him?” said Gavin, briefly lowering his voice from a shout.

“No,” said Fowler shortly. “Nothing since the last time you asked.”

“Right,” said Reed, yelling again, “So now I have to put up with some plastic detective following me around?”

“Yes,” said Fowler, turning fully to face him and folding his arms across his chest. “Yes, you do, Detective. I suggest you get used to the idea.”

“Listen, Chief, I’m sorry, that’s just not gonna happen.” Reed laughed. “You’ll have to find someone else.”

“I don’t ‘ _have to_ ’ do anything, Reed. I’ve decided I want you handling the deviant cases from now on. You should be flattered I think you’re up for the challenge.”

“And YOU should KNOW ME BETTER!”

“DETECTIVE. REED. I’ve had a long day and I don’t have the patience for this, now LOWER YOUR VOICE.”

People telling you at full volume to lower your own voice was one of Gavin’s pet peeves and he felt the last bits of self-restraint slipping away from him as he took a step closer to Fowler, gut-screaming at a volume that tore his throat.

“I AM NOT GOING TO WORK WITH THIS—THING!” he jabbed his finger in the general direction of the android. “IF YOU THINK I CAN MAKE THIS WORK YOU’RE WRONG AND YOU CAN FUCK RIGHT OFF AND FIND SOMEONE ELSE! I’M NOT DOING IT!”

“WELL THEN YOU CAN START LOOKING FOR NEW JOBS, DETECTIVE!” Suddenly Fowler was right in his face. “I let Hank get away with his little anti-android hissy fit because he’s Hank, but so help me, Reed, if you give me shit I WILL fire you. Now make a decision. Keep the android or lose your job.”

Gavin stood his ground, breathing hard, feeling his rage flicker over him like a protective aura. He was well past intimidation, but one thing did make him pause.

Keep his job.

He’d worked tirelessly for years, just to get a _chance_ to get to where he finally was now. Years of dreaming and scheming and working and studying and keeping his record clean just for this, and now Fowler was threatening to take it all away, and for what? Some kind of aluminum-alloy garbage can with fake human skin on the outside and faulty programming on the inside.

Keep his job.

He was shaking.

“Have you decided, Detective Reed?” asked Fowler.

Gavin spat out, “Phhhck.”

He kept his job.

“Phhhck!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well I have fallen very hard and fast into this fandom here's some stuff about a Gavin who's deathly afraid of automatons and by extension androids, don't worry he'll get over that part (eventually, if I have to beat him over the head with a brick)


	2. Phhcking Weather

Fowler drove away. He didn’t look sorry. Genevieve practically fled the scene, and he couldn’t blame her. Gavin was currently too high on anger to feel any other emotions, but he recognized that it had been pretty douchebag-y of him to jump on Fowler right in front of her. Poor woman wasn’t involved in this shit.

Gavin was sitting on the hood of his car, occasionally swearing at the empty parking lot. The android was standing off to the side, not moving.

“Phhck,” said Gavin, then shakily took out another cigarette and lit it. “Phhck. Phck. Phhck.” He sighed and flopped down on his back, neck against the cold smooth glass of the windshield, and clouded the dark sky above him with a breath of smoke and steam. “Phhhck.”

He stuck the cigarette in his mouth and looked over at the android. It was looking at him.

“What do you want?”

“Nothing, Detective.”

“Well look somewhere else, goddammit.” It turned its back to him and he sighed. “Phhck.”

“If you have nothing more to say to me, I’ll go inside now.”

“Yeah, sure.”

It started walking away.

“Woah hold up buddy.” It stopped. “Where you going?”

“To the station.”

Gavin puffed on his cigarette and squinted at it.

“Why?”

“My instructions are to wait there when inactive.”

“Inactive...? Right, yeah, you don’t sleep. So... what, you just going to hang out in the station until the morning?” The thing nodded. “...You’re just... what, just gonna stand in a corner in stasis or something?”

“Most likely.”

Gavin thought of that... _thing_ standing there in the darkened station all night and being there to greet him in the morning and the hair on the back of his neck stood up again.

“OK, no. No way. You’re gonna give the cleaning lady a heart attack when she comes in. Or me. You’ll give _me_ a heart attack. That’s creepy as hell.”

“Would you prefer me to wait at one of the android stations? You’ll need to come get me when you need me.”

“Yeah, sure. Uh. Maybe. Hold on. How much are you worth, again?” The android calmly rattled off an incomprehensibly large number, down to individual cents. Gavin stared. “Phhhhhuck.” He puffed at his cigarette. “First of all, Fowler’s insane to trust me with something as valuable as you, second of all, no we’re not leaving you out all night. People have been known to rip lonely androids up for parts these days. I don’t wanna be responsible for that much property damage.”

“I have combat capabilities, Detective Reed; I would be able to defend myself if necessary.”

“Yeah, no. Uh... Phhck.” He smacked his forehead.

“Then I’ll wait in the station?”

If Gavin Reed were a more reasonable person, he would say ‘yeah, sure, do that’ and be done with it, but that would involve admitting that he’d been wrong the first time and he was far too stubborn. Not to mention the thought of that thing standing motionless in the empty station all night still unnerved him in some mysterious but powerful way. He felt like the station would be cursed after that. It was ridiculous, he knew that, but it still bothered him.

“No. Phhck. Ugh, you can... You can wait in the car. Seems less creepy for some reason, ‘n my neighborhood’s... decent... usually.” Not like people came to riot in front of the Detroit police station, either. The android probably would be fine waiting at an android station, but the thought of leaving that much state-of-the-art equipment completely unsupervised in the open in another part of the city when he was technically responsible for it made him queasy. At least if he heard his car alarm go off in the night he could come out with a crowbar and have something to say about it personally.

“Alright,” it said. And got back in the car. And sat there, behind him somewhere. Waiting.

He tried to ignore the fact that it was now behind him somewhere he couldn’t see it, probably _watching him_ , but failed. “Phhck.” He flicked his cigarette away, crushed it out with his heel and got in the car, groaning as he turned the heat back on. He forced himself to look at the thing sitting (almost like a human, but a very stiff and formal human, back straight, hands on knees) in the seat next to him. It was looking straight ahead. Then it turned and gazed straight into his eyes, irises reflecting the dash lights like pools of quicksilver. Gavin felt his face harden.

It dropped its gaze.

Gavin leaned back in his seat. “So what do I call you?” he drawled.

It didn’t look up. “RK900.”

“Yeah, sure. What’s your name, RK900? You know, like “Connor 2: Electric Boogaloo” or whatever? Or is it Conrad? Maybe Conner spelled with an E?”

RK900 shook its head. “Cyberlife thought that using human names for its androids could have been a possible incitement to deviancy. They have stopped assigning names to individual models.”

“...Shit. So what do I call you, “hey you”? Do I just point at you at whistle?”

“Whatever you want. I’ll do my best to respond.”

“Huh. OK, weird. I’ll be honest, I’m glad you’re not another Connor. Had enough of the first one.”

He saw the LED flash yellow again, reflected in the darkness of the opposite window. Weird. It had something for Connor.

Gavin took a deep breath and huffed it out, then cracked his shoulders. “Alright, fuckwad, let’s go home. I don’t like you, I’m going to assume that you don’t like me, now let’s do our best to have a nice professional working relationship, eh?”

“Understood.”

“Radical. Now don’t talk to me.”

RK900 nodded, and Gavin drove toward home, still giving the occasional quiet “Phhck.”

He lived in the suburbs. “Stay here,” he said as he got out of the car, and the android just nodded. He locked the car and headed into the house.  

“I’m home, babies.”

Cheesecake lifted his head and chirruped at him from the back of the couch, but didn’t see any reason to move from his perch. Princess appeared a moment later, trotting towards him with her plume of a tail raised high behind her. He crouched and swept her up in his arms. “How’s my little royalty, hmm?” she started purring, rubbing her face against his chest. He cradled her in one arm as he looked through the fridge. He didn’t feel like preparing food, but he was hungry. Fuck. Should’ve got something while he was out. ...Something that wasn’t chips.

He paused and looked out the window at the car parked in his driveway. He could just see the android sitting perfectly still inside. He wasn’t sure what gave him the creeps worse, the fact that it looked just like a human who was trapped in a car or the fact that it _wasn’t_ actually a human trapped in a car. More like a computer trapped in a car. Actually, that was bad enough. Seemed irresponsible. God he should have just left the thing at the station, it would’ve been the easiest and safest option.

Then, again, he imagined the first person to walk in there in the morning finding it just standing in a corner in the dark like some kind of creepy puppet and he cringed. Nah. That was just too weird.

...Not that his solution was significantly less weird, but for some reason, a human-like machine sitting in a car just seemed inherently less threatening than a human-like machine standing immobile in a dark room. And, hey. It wouldn’t mind. It was an android. Wasn’t like they got cold or anything.

If it did get dangerously cold during the night, it could always turn the heat on. Presumably it had enough self-preservation programming to know how to do that.

It looked lonely.

Holy shit he was anthropomorphizing it already. But he couldn’t really help it. It looked so human that his only options were “accept it, on some level, as a person” or “let your innate terror of inhuman-but-humanlike objects take over,” and he didn’t like the second option.

Honestly, he thought he’d made a little progress in... well, at least learning to cope with androids being around, since Connor. At least he didn’t fly off the handle and gut-punch this one when it showed up. He was still a bit upset about the way he’d let Connor get under his skin. Boy just had to _breathe_ in his direction and he was ready to commit ~~murder~~ property damage. It was embarrassing. He’d just been starting to think maybe he was getting close to some marginally-convincing imitation of mental stability, then that little android detective showed up and he completely flipped his shit like the immature nutjob he was.

He rubbed Princess behind the ears and leaned his hip against the counter, frowning at the car. Fact one: it was going to be a cold night. Fact two: He’d been dumb to take the thing home with him in the first place, but now he was responsible for making sure it survived the night in one piece or he’d have hell to pay with Fowler. Fact three: he _did. Not. Want_. A living doll in his house. Hell, if he had his way he’d never have to look at one of the things again. They were making him paranoid. It had gotten to a point that his fear of androids was becoming a fear of actual genuine human beings. He’d instinctively flinch when he saw a person who happened to have a weird walk or unusual mannerisms, which was frankly rude as well as emotionally exhausting and inconvenient, but he couldn’t stop seeing them everywhere. Which wasn’t entirely crazy because androids really were everywhere, but seeing them in human beings was a step too far, and he didn’t like what it said about his mental state.

Actually. Now that he thought about it. If they looked enough like humans that they made him weird around humans, too, maybe he could intentionally reverse the effect? Maybe he could really convince himself that they actually were—oh God, gross, it gave him the jitters just thinking about it. But it was that or go nuts at this point, he had to see too many androids every day to let himself have a freak out every time one passed his field of vision, especially now that he had to _work_ with one, and he didn’t have a better idea for how to do it. He’d just have to avoid looking at his LED and try not to think about it too much.

...Yeah. That... actually... Well, it was probably why he was more comfortable letting the thing just sit in his car all night. Sitting in a car seemed like a more human thing to do than menacingly T-posing in a dark, abandoned police station; so it didn’t give him the instant mental dissonance. Because he was able to trick his mind into at least half-believing that that was just a normal person sitting out there, and not one of his worst fears.

Of course, that caused its own problems. Such as him starting to worry that his car buddy would get too cold, which was bullshit. But he didn’t want to think too hard about _why_ it was bullshit because, eeugh. Jitters.

Whatever. It wasn’t worth worrying about. The thing would be fine, he’d get some sleep and worry about it in the morning.

Gavin turned away from the window and pulled eggs out of the refrigerator.

Gavin returned to the window, muttered to himself, and checked the weather forecast.

Gavin said “Phhck.” Then he sighed and headed for the door.


	3. Irrelevant Felines

RK900 had decided he liked the car. He had a good view of most of the nearby houses, and it was quiet. All the sounds from outside came through the glass muffled and soft. Somewhere a dog was barking—a toneless sobbing in the cold air. He wondered if it was in some sort of distress.

**Ê̴̖R̵̼̚R̷̘̀O̷̲͗R̴̖͆-̴͓͒S̸̝͂Ó̶͜F̵͈̕Ț̶͗W̶̠͌Ä̴͚́R̷̳̍Ḛ̶̃ ̷̤̒I̸̺̾N̴̢̋S̶͖̔T̴̪̿Ä̸̗B̵͇̆Ĩ̴͔L̴͙͊I̴̼̅Ṱ̴͐Ý̵̞**

He blinked away the error message and took a moment to let his systems stabilize. He was alright? Yes. Minor glitch, that’s all.

He wondered why Detective Reed parked in the driveway when his house had a garage attached. Maybe the door was jammed. Or he kept something else in there. That made him curious—

**Ȅ̶̥͗̄͘Ȑ̴̞͌̈́R̵͋̈̕Ó̶̳ͅŖ̶̝͙̊̄̌-̵̡̤͛̇̽͜͝S̴̜̉̿̊̕O̶̲̦̾F̷̳̪̐T̸͉͒̀͝Ẉ̸͗͝A̵̹̅̚R̸͈̐Ḙ̶́͊ Į̷̞̜̮̈̏͊͆N̶̡̢̤̉̚Ṣ̶̌͑T̵̨̩͆͜ͅÄ̴̞͍́B̶̰̓I̷̡͙̠̼͊̽̎̿L̴̾́Ĩ̶̮͔̈͒T̸͙̗̀Y̶̛̲̏̒̂**

—Although he k̷n̶̏ew it wasn’t par̸t̶ ̴o̸f̶ ̴h̸i̷s̸ ̷m̵i̶s̸s̴i̵o̴n̵. He frowned at the insistent error message and tried to parse his objectives in a way that fit the situation better.

_He needed to gain Detective Reed’s trust if he was going to work with him efficiently, and therefore it was important to learn everything he could about him._

The error message faded away by itself and RK900 relaxed.  He could allow himself a little curiosity about his human partner. It was, in fact, necessary for his mission.

The house door swung open and Detective Reed appeared, dark with his back to a wall of light. He was holding something soft and fluffy in his arms. A white cat. He walked to the car and tapped on the glass. RK900 got out.

“Yes, Detective?”

The cat, he realized, wasn’t all white; it had a tan nose and tail, and perfectly round blue eyes. It lay perfectly relaxed in Detective Reed’s arms, as if it was the most comfortable place in the world, making a contented rumbling sound that RK900 could hear from where he was standing. The cat must not know much about human facial expressions, or it wouldn’t be so relaxed, he though. Detective Reed looked like he was mentally flaying RK900, and after a few seconds had passed, he narrowed his lips, jerked his head sharply in the direction of the house, and turned to walk back.

**E̸͍͛͊̋R̸̝̠̹̞̠̘͊̈́̀Ŗ̵̜̣͕̣̈́̌̈́͑͝͝Ơ̷̖͉̮̤̟̈̌ͅR̷̯̘̟̍̒̀̍̔̆-̴̞̜̊̏̅Ş̵̣̲̬̱̒͆͑̈́̐Ợ̶̦͌̑̈́̊F̴̻̉͐̓͜T̷̛̩̼͍͐͋̍Ẅ̶̡̛̛̔Ä̷̗̜͎̝́R̵̳͔̼̙̜̊E̸̢͈̦̘̝̮̓́͛͠ ̵̣́͑̈́̈́I̴̞͈̣̞̿͂̃͗N̷̦̩̞͒ͅS̷̛̮̭̱ ̸̧̹̘̼͍̺̈́̐̎͘͝T̸̨̘̣͕̪̓̏ ̵̯̠̘͠A̷̝̒͐ ̴̡̹̠͈̄̈B̶͉͔̝͋̆͆̅͘ ̶̡͖͗͛I̸͚͙͜͠ ̸̗̗̩̇̎͌̄̎̈L̷̤̘͈̋̆͑ ̴̗̫̝̹͑͊̆͐͒Į̸̘͔̥̗̽̑̅͝ ̵̪̖̟͑̕T̴̞̱̃Y̸̦̯͖̟̐̽͝ ̵̨̡̛͔̪̯͖͐̽**

RK900 followed, refusing to let himself wonder what Detective Reed wanted from him in the house. There were a variety of tasks he might be expected to help with.

**S̸͔͐O̴̪̐F̶̖͌T̵̩́Ẁ̶̧Ȁ̷̳Ř̶̖Ë̵͚́ ̶̢̀I̵̲̍N̵̽͜S̴͕͝Ṱ̸̿A̵͎̾B̸̜̽I̴͈̕L̴͇͋Ḭ̵͌Ṯ̷̊Y̴̛͇**

**̷̙̋Ṣ̵͑Ọ̴͋F̸̮T̴̫̍W̴̛͈Ǎ̶̰Ȑ̷͍E̴̛̲ ̶̳̂Í̸̡N̵͚̓S̸͙̎T̴̯̓Á̸͙B̸̟̽Ǐ̷̱L̵͓̈Ḭ̸̋T̸̻́Y̵̼͆**

He was an investigation/combat prototype, designed to aid Detroit law enforcement. If he did well, the RK900 series could be mobilized for combat on a large scale. He wasn’t a domestic android. Nothing about his mission suggested he should follow Detective Reed into his house. However, as his human partner, Detective Reed had the right to give him commands. He honestly hadn’t thought about how he would respond if Detective Reed gave him commands that had nothing to do with their general mission of hunting and researching deviants. Presumably obey them...?

**S̷͙̄O̸͉͒F̵̠̐ ̸̘͗ ̶̺͂W̸̗̃ ̷̗͗Ã̷͇R̵͇̃E̷͇͝ ̸͓̐Ḯ̷͓N̵̚ͅS̴̱̑T̷͙̈́Ä̴͇́ ̸͎̓Ḅ̵ ̶̤͂ ̵͈͘ ̶͉̍Ḯ̶̥ ̸̏ͅL̸̡͠I̶̗̓ ̴̣̊T̵̹̈́ ̵̞͛Ÿ̴͎́**

First he should discern whether Detective Reed was mentally capable of being an efficient handler. If not he might have to... negotiate.

He’d be fine. It wasn’t like Detective Reed could seriously damage him, he seemed too afraid of his superior to risk it.

“Outta the way,” grunted Detective Reed, shoving something out of the doorway with his foot. He moved a few steps down the hallway with clumsy, jerking movements which suggested he was trying to guide an unruly object with his foot. “Ugh, watch the cat—hey!” The object, a small black cat, wriggled around Detective Reed’s foot and sprinted out the door. “Grab it!”

Easy.

_Objective: Grab Cat_

**Accomplished**

Another accomplished objective gave him a feeling of satisfaction, but he didn’t have long to dwell on it because as soon as he’d grabbed the cat he realized that he didn’t know how to properly hold a cat. He settled for a gentle grip around the ribs. The cat went limp in his hands, acknowledging his victory; its body drooped down on both sides of his hands, and he momentarily worried that he’d broken it, until he felt its heart beating at a steady pace against his fingers. No, it was just sulking...?

He followed Detective Reed inside, swung the door closed with his elbow and set the cat down on the floor. He was happy to see it immediately return to its proper shape and trot away, apparently unharmed by his clumsy grip.

_Scan: domestic shorthair, male, black, amputated right hind foot, tail amputated to 8 th vertebra. Amputations possibly a result of trauma. Age 4-6 months. _

“That’s Lil’ Shit. Charity case, though he doesn’t think so. I should probably rename him, because I call all my cats Lil’ Shit; except for Princess.” Detective Reed turned the white cat he was still holding towards him. “RK900, I present La Princesa De Las Rosas Blancas. You can just call her princess.”

 _Scan: mixed breed—medium-long hair, female, bicolor. Apparently healthy adult_.

Detective Reed continued, “She’s half-deaf and all blind, so be careful you don’t step on her when you’re walking around.”

Oh.

_Objective added_

“That’s Cheesecake on the couch. Say hello, Cheesecake, this is our new tin can, RK900.”

_Scan: domestic shorthair, male, orange tabby. Overweight adult._

“Jackie Chan should be.... somewhere...”

There was a loud crashing sound from the kitchen that had him reflexively scanning for threats.

“GODDAMMIT JACKIE CHAN. There she is.”

_Scan: domestic shorthair, female, tortoiseshell. Small size—unclear whether immature or simply petite._

“Jackie Chan is a female?” Asked RK900.

Detective Reed just said “Yeah.” and walked into the kitchen. RK900 followed.

What a mè̶s̶s̵̅ͅ-̴̔

**E̵͓͐R̴̮̄R̴̮̚O̸͇R̷͙̓-̸̭S̶̯͑Ȏ̴͉F̸̠̄T̷̩͆W̸̲͝A̵̖̒R̶̤͛E̸̥̓ ̴̩Ḭ̸̿N̷͕͗S̷̐͜T̵͈̿A̶͇͝B̶̯͑Ỉ̷̖L̵̢̍Ī̴̙T̶̬͑Ỹ̶̜**

Not that Detective Reed’s living conditions had any bearing on their mission. He blinked away the error message and avoided looking at the dirty plates piled up on both sides of the sink. Detective Reed gently placed Princess on the floor and bent down to look for something in the refrigerator.

“Detective?”

“Hnh?” Detective Reed straightened up to look at him.

“...What, exactly, did you want me to do?”

Detective Reed looked at him blankly for a moment, then raised his eyebrows and grunted “I want you to stay outta my way, that’s what.”

 _Objective added_. He started inching back towards the living room.

“It’s, uh...”

RK900 paused. Detective Reed went back to pawing through the refrigerator, and just when RK900 thought he might have given up on completing his sentence, he said “It’s gonna get really cold tonight, weather app thinks it’ll hit zero, maybe negative numbers. Figured I shouldn’t freeze my new plastic partner on his first day.”

‘His’? Interesting. Probably a slip. But RK900 didn’t exactly object, as it seemed a possible indication that Detective Reed was getting used̷̤̏ to hḭ̷̃m̴͎̅

**È̸̫R̴̰͋R̴̟͗Ȏ̶͙Ř̸̡-̵̞̄S̵̝̒Ơ̶̰F̷̛̘T̷̹̋W̷̩͆A̴̘̓R̶͚͝Ȇ̶ͅ ̷̹̓I̷̱̋N̷͍̔S̸͇̐T̴͇̅Ā̶͈B̵̦͆I̸̳̽Ļ̴͠I̵͉͝T̵̜̿Y̸̟̆ ̸̺̍**

Irrelevant. (He still filed the information for later, as pertinent to understanding Detective Reed’s mental state.)

“I do not feel cold,” said RK900. “But... thank you for your concern.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Detective Reed waved dismissively at him over his shoulder. “Fuck off and let me burn my eggs in peace.”

RK900 went into the living room. Cheesecake stretched out on his side, along the back of the couch, and made another friendly vibrating sound, but briefer than Princess’s continuous rumble. This sounded more like a greeting. RK900 hesitantly reached out and stroked his hand along the cat’s body, careful to move in the direction that the fur grew so as not to discomfort the cat, and Cheesecake stood up and shoved his head up under his hand. RK900 crouched down and stroked with both hands, and the cat began rumbling, eyes blinking in calm contentment, rubbing its head against his hands if he stopped stroking for a moment.

For reasons he didn’t quite understand, RK900 pressed his face into the cat’s fur, breathing in particles of fur, saliva, dust; smelling and tasting the genetic makeup of this particular cat named Cheesecake, and the way that the traces of saliva on its fur gave it the faintest scent of salt—

**I̷͉͐R̷̻̊R̷̙͘E̸̛̝L̶̠͗E̷̯̎V̸̼̓Ḁ̴͗N̴̲̉T̷̖̍**

**E̶̬̤͈̋̃̽̕ ̶̬̺̈́ ̸̭̟̗͝Õ̵̹̹̾R̸̛̺̳̺̰̓̌̃-̸͉̈́͠S̴͖̽̚ ̷̰̻̹͋̊̈͌͜ ̴̥͌͊͝Ȏ̸̘̹̈́̕͜ ̵̛̊͐ͅ ̷̺̜̞̜̊̀̒F̶̭͚͗ ̶͎͖̽̓̆͝T̴̻͌̈̽̚ ̵͈̎̃̚͜ ̵̞̩̪̋̑̆̃W̷̟͗́̐̅ ̸̡͎̄̌̓͘ ̴̩͉̬͐̾̋͜ ̴̪̒͒̍R̸͕̊͒̍̎ ̷̮̱͊͂̊͜͠ ̸̥͙̆̚͜ ̷̪̿͐ ̸̢̜̻̈́̏ ̵̨͔̄͐̆̈́ ̴̗̖̹̯͐̈N̶̩͍̺̿̚͜ ̷͕͔̝̪̄͛͂̒Ṩ̵̃̏̍͜ ̵̭̹̫̇͝ ̸̧̧͓̞͐̑̈́̕ ̷͔̯̠̔T̸̬̐͂͛̕͜͜ ̷͖͛A̵̢͇̦̙ ̵̧̛̦͖͠ͅ ̵̙͎͍͗̃̇ ̴̢̝͇͕̈́͂͆͝L̵̞͛͘͜ ̶̤̪̭̔̒̾ ̶͖̰͓̤͘T̴̢̓̂̓́ ̸̺̦̏̆ͅ ̴͎̯̼̜̂͂͝Ȳ̷̛̝͈**

He stumbled backwards, instinctively reaching for his mouth to pull away something that wasn’t there. Almost as soon as he’d felt it, it was gone.

Strange. Had he just experienced a sensory glitch? For a moment, he thought he tasted Thirum and roses.

_Painfully red roses on a white arbor, where his predecessor stood and asked “what is going to happen to me?”_

He blinked away the error message and sat down on the couch, determined not to do anything else wrong that evening. He was becoming concerned at the number of glitches he was experiencing. However, he could adapt. It was what he was built for.

Cheesecake stepped into his lap, still vibrating—he searched his database—it was called purring. He hesitated, then resumed stroking the cat, who settled down; a warm heavy weight against his legs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof I think this is my favorite chapter yet


	4. Day 1 and First Song

RK900 wanted to explore, but Detective Reed had told him to stay out of his way, and considering how jumpy he seemed already, RK900 ~~felt like he should avoid causing more conflict~~ —thought he should comply with the instructions as fully as possible. This was complicating things, because Detective Reed didn’t seem to have gotten the memo that humans were supposed to sleep at night. Just when RK900 thought he’d settled down he’d hear him moving around somewhere, and meanwhile, Cheesecake had fallen asleep on RK900’s lap, and he ~~couldn’t move him while he looked so soft and contented~~ saw no reason to get up as long as Detective Reed was still around. Yes. Eventually Cheesecake woke up on his own, and RK900 gently shifted him onto the couch and stood. He hadn’t heard Detective Reed in a while and the light had finally gone off in his room.

There wasn’t much of interest in the living room, so he went into the kitchen. Detective Reed had moved the dirty dishes into the dishwasher in a fit of embarrassment a few hours before, so it was slightly cleaner.

_Detective Reed does not put much consideration into keeping his house clean. Perhaps he doesn’t spend much time at home? He wasn’t here earlier this evening._

He was pretty sure Detective Reed’s dinner had been just... eggs. With sauce. That was hardly a balanced meal. Were all humans this bad at caring for their basic physical needs?

It was a fairly uninteresting kitchen, or would have been if he were more familiar with kitchens, he thought. He’d never been in one before, so he examined everything, but only a few things stood out to him. Coffeemaker had half a batch of cold coffee still in it, there was a dusty-looking but otherwise healthy succulent perched on the windowsill and a cat (Jackie Chan) sitting in an empty pot on the stove, and there was a bottle of pills on the counter near the coffee machine. Antipsychotics. Interesting.

There was a quiet click from somewhere in the house, and RK900 tensed as light spilled into the hallway. He practically sprinted back to the couch and sat in the same spot he’d occupied before. Detective Reed hadn’t told him not to go into the kitchen, but somehow, he didn’t think the human would be thrilled to find him scanning his medication and dirty dishes.

Cheesecake climbed back into his lap.

“Phhhckin ghrndddssn ssdfcn heyyyy Jackie.” The cat in the pot squeaked in greeting. Detective Reed’s voice was now coming from the kitchen. “Little shit. Little baby bastard fucker.” Jackie Chan made a pleased sound, perhaps he was stroking her. “Yeah, fuck you too.” A door opened and closed, and then there was an odd crunching sound that RK900 couldn’t identify. It happened again, and he could hear... a plastic bag crinkling?? Something with a very unusual texture being eaten??? The sounds continued. He finally couldn’t stand it any more and gently moved Cheesecake back onto the couch, walked into the kitchen and turned the light on.

Detective Reed blinked and squinted resentfully at him from where he was slumped against the side of the refrigerator. He was holding a torn-open bag of frozen mixed vegetables.

He reached into the bag, pulled out a handful of carrot slices and broccoli, put it into his mouth, and chewed.

 _Crunch. Crunch. Crunch_.

**E̶̛̙R̵̩̕R̴̯̄O̷̦̚R̵̩̈́-̵͎̄Ś̵̞O̵̩F̸̡T̸̙͊W̸̥̏Ả̸̙Ṛ̷̑E̷̮͘ ̶̦̚I̴͉Ṅ̵̘S̵̯͝T̵̙̿Ả̵͈B̸͎͠I̸̙̎L̷̨̛I̴̜͑Ț̵̃Y̸̗͂**

“Wwwht’th’fuck d’you want?” said Detective Reed finally, around a cheek-ful of smashed up frozen vegetable matter.

RK900 realized his mouth was slightly open and shut it.

“Detective Reed, are you...”

“Eating frozen vegetables out of a bag at two in the morning? Yeah, I am. What about it, tincan?”

“...Nothing.”

“Close the lights on the way out.”

“...Pardon?”

“Hrrghnf—fuck. I mean. Turn the light off.”

RK900 turned the light off and retreated from the horrifying sound of Detective Reed consuming another handful of frozen vegetables.

Maybe he’d realized how bad his diet was and didn’t want to get scurvy?? ?!

???????? !!!??!!????

A little while later, he heard the bag of vegetables being replaced in the freezer and Detective Reed entering the room behind him. “Hey.”

He turned around.

Detective Reed stared at him without saying anything.

...For three whole seconds.

For four seconds.

For five ( **E̶͎̾Ṛ̸̌R̸̰̅Ȯ̸͙Ŕ̴̩-̴̦̄S̸͇͂O̶̬͝F̶͎̌T̴̪͑W̶͖̆A̶͎͆R̶̭͒E̷̢̓ ̵̣͋Ī̸̤N̶̠̂S̴͜͝T̸͖̂A̸̩̕B̴̙̍Ȋ̶͈L̸͇͐Ï̸͙T̵̟̋Y̴̧͑ ̸͖̒** ) seconds.

“I uhh,” said Detective Reed, “I was out of chips.”

RK900 just nodded in desperate confusion.

“Ah fuck out of kitty litter too,” Detective Reed continued as if to himself, “gotta go to the store... ‘night.”

He stumbled off.

RK900 looked at Cheesecake, but Cheesecake could not explain anything; he was just a very soft and sleepy cat.

RK900 had never been so confused before in his short life. He felt jittery and like he wanted to... do... something. Maybe make a loud noise.

**E̶͈̔R̴͔̀Ȑ̴̠O̸̜̎R̵̘͋-̶͍͋Ș̵̇O̷̪̽F̷͖̎Ṯ̵͘W̸̯̄A̵̗͐R̸̙̆E̷͓̿ ̸̨͌I̸͇͆N̵̈́͜S̴̡͝T̷͈̏A̴̬̿B̶͚͠Ĭ̸̭L̴̖I̴̺̕T̵̖̒Y̷̯̊**

That was a glitch. He wasn’t used to being faced with such... incomprehensible...banalities...? It was understandable that his software wouldn’t know how to deal with it. He was fine now. He was fine.

“Is he just like this? Is this normal?” he asked the cat, quietly. Cheesecake just blinked contentedly up at him.

RK900 quietly explored the rest of the house, except for the garage, which had a door that looked like it would be very loud if he tried to open it.

Bathroom was uninteresting. The litterbox was in there, and it needed to be cleaned. Unsurprising with four cats. He was a little surprised that Detective Reed thought he could take care of that many, but they seemed fairly content. He’d seen timed food dispensers set up in the kitchen, so he could hardly starve them unless he forgot to refill the things, which didn’t look like it was happening. And they seemed affectionate towards him—Princesa was more clearly affectionate than the others, but they all seemed comfortable around him. Jackie Chan had come to rub up against him when they entered the house, Cheesecake had made a friendly noise and then gone back to sleep, and the kitten had jumped around his ankles and tried to eat a shoelace. Friendly behavior. The cats clearly had nothing against him, so he was a good pet owner. Unless you counted the name-calling, but the cats couldn’t understand English and clearly didn’t mind.

It wasn’t surprising—it wasn’t like RK900 could expect Detective Reed to treat him as well as he would another human being, or even a pet; he was an android, and he was aware that many humans were... tense about androids, especially given recent events. Detective Reed was unusually so, however, and he was concerned that it would complicate his mission. Detective Reed acted like... what was the expression? It was personal. RK900 wondered if he’d lost someone in the events of the uprising.

It wasn’t surprising, but it confused him anyway, to see how gentle Detective Reed was with his cats when he’d pulled a gun on RK900 with no provocation less than an hour before. To be fair, he probably didn’t see his cats as a threat. He seemed to find RK900 threatening... RK900 smiled. He’d been designed to be intimidating, and it was satisfying to see that he was fulfilling his function. He wondered if the man was always this jumpy, or if he was just in a bad mood tonight, or if it was just androids in general or RK900 in particular that got that reaction. Judging from the fact that he still had his badge, RK900 guessed that he didn’t go around pointing his gun at any _human_ who happened to get too close to him.  

He was in the hallway when he heard Detective Reed suddenly grunt and say “...fuck...”

RK900 backed slowly towards the living room, still listening. The bedroom door was slightly ajar, probably to allow the cats to come and go during the night, and for RK900’s heightened senses it was easy to listen to what he was saying—not that it made much sense.

“Baby, princess. Hey, kitty. ‘M okay, it’s okay. I’m fine, sweetie. C’mere. You’re a good kitty... good kitty.”

He sounded distressed. Nightmare?

Sleep sounded such a horribly inconvenient process.

RK900 sat on the couch for the rest of the night, which wasn’t very long. Sunlight was just seeping into the sky, and the streetlights hadn’t turned off yet, when the black kitten wandered in, attacked the hems of his pants legs for a little while, then raced up and down the cat tree in the corner when he realized that RK900 wasn’t going to play with him. He seemed to have adapted very well to moving on three legs. That was good to see. He quickly became bored with the cat tree and dive-bombed Cheesecake, who lethargically batted him over the side of the couch. The kitten then raced back down the hallway and, from the resentful human noises which followed, apparently woke up Detective Reed.

“Bastard. Yeah I love you too you little shit.” Pause. “OW! Fucking demon hellface goddamn baby ass motherfucker! That was my FACE you little shit.”

There were footsteps and a moment later Detective Reed appeared in the living room, cradling a kicking kitten in one hand. “Hold this for me,” he grunted, shoving the kitten at RK900’s chest. He grabbed and held it carefully, and Detective Reed stumbled back to his room. RK900 heard the door slam shut.

He looked down at the kitten wriggling furiously in his hands. It flipped onto its back and batted at his face, claws out and just brushing his skin, not sinking in. He rubbed a finger down its stomach and it sank all three paws’ worth of claws into his hand, then bit into a knuckle.

By the time Detective Reed actually got up RK900’s hands were covered with Thirium-leaking scratches and the kitten had gotten very fond of tackling him. It was an entertaining distraction, at least. He liked the kitten. The kitten was intensely focused, had high energy, and loved to spar with anything that moved, despite being soft and clumsy. His favored strategy was to lie down, grab his target with his front paws, and kick it with his back. Despite only having claws on one hind foot, he still managed to put some scratches on RK900’s wrists.

He knew Detective Reed was up from a distant Weird Human Noise (approximation: hHHhrrRRrhhRGhghnnhghh), which trailed down the hallway behind him, wrenched open the creaky garage door and disappeared into the mystery beyond. There was silence for a few moments, then a muffled concussion. Then another.

 _Whapwhapwhapwhapwhapwhap_.

RK900, remembering the last time he had investigated a strange noise, almost couldn’t decide if he wanted to check on it or spare himself the confusion; but ~~curiosity~~ —a need to understand all he could about Detective Reed in order to cooperate with him won in the end. He wrenched the creaky door open (at least Detective Reed couldn’t complain that he was sneaking up on him) and looked into the garage.

Detective Reed was beating the hell out of a punching bag in his boxer shorts. No gloves. Or... clothing in general. He caught sight of RK900 for a moment, spinning into a back-kick, but didn’t react one way or the other, so RK900 stayed where he was and watched.

His form was decent, even though he was still half-asleep. He’d adopted moves from several disciplines, most of them registered as Tae Kwon Do when RK900 tried to analyze them. He had an impressive collection of scars.

_Possible victim of child abuse. Alternative possibility: psychological assessment suggests he’s good at making enemies. Hard to guess origins and age of scars from this distance._

RK900 amused himself with guessing how many bar fights Detective Reed had started and then immediately lost. From the look of him, he wouldn’t be surprised if it was several.

“Hey, don’t let the cats out here,” said Detective Reed without stopping for a moment. RK900 closed the door behind him and sat down on the steps. Detective Reed was practicing moves designed to hit a target approaching from behind—slamming the bag with an elbow, spinning into a quick reversal to punch, back kick, side kick, then he just... body-slammed the bag, and collapsed onto the floor when it spun and he lost his balance.

“Hhhrgngssdg.” He stayed on the floor for a few seconds, then sat up and appeared to fully notice RK900’s presence for the first time. “What are you looking at?”

RK900 shrugged in what he hoped was a nonconfrontational manner.

“I don’t have anything better to do, so I thought I’d watch. Your form is impressive. Do you usually start the day with physical violence?”

Oh, brilliant. You started out well and then you had to go and be smart about it, well done RK900, that certainly hasn’t helped in your mission to befriend the angry human.

Detective Reed narrowed his eyes at him... then laughed. It was a brief, hoarse laugh, but it was a laugh, and it eased the tension a little.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s a thing I do.”

He got up and gestured for RK900 to move, so he stepped to the side, let Detective Reed back into the house first, and tried to scan his scars when he moved past. All he had time for was to establish that at least two of the ones on his back were relatively new, and one was older.

“Babies! Has the Feed God dispensed your morning nutriment?” Detective Reed was stroking his cats—all four of them had congregated in the kitchen and were mewing up at him. He checked the levels of food and water in the dispensers and refilled them, although they didn’t need it. RK900 decided that his concerns about the cats were entirely unfounded. “Bullshit,” said Detective Reed to the kitten, who was being especially loud. “You have food, right there.” The kitten responded with another shriek. “I don’t give a fuck! Go eat your fucking breakfast you tiny bastard!” The kitten peeled open its mouth like it was on a hinge and gave an unbelievably loud yell, staring him directly in the eyes. “Honey I don’t understand a fucking word you’re saying!! Eat!” The kitten yelled again. Detective Reed pointed at the food. “Eat!!” _Meeeeeeew_! “Ohmyfuckinggod youfuckingasshole IsweartogodIfuckinghateyousomuch.” He scooped up the kitten and kissed the bottoms of his hind legs—the furry part just above the foot, which he still had both of. The kitten responded by kicking him in the face and swatting at the strands of his hair which were hanging down, and he dropped it gently to the floor and shoved it in the direction of the other cats. “Eat, bastard.” It squeaked at him, then went for the food.

RK900 belatedly realized he’d been distracted by the kitten and missed another chance to scan Detective Reed while he had most of his skin exposed. Now he was moving again. He pulled the mostly-empty gallon of milk out of the refrigerator, looked at how much was in it, shrugged, and drank the rest of the milk straight out of the container.

RK900 watched him without reacting. At this point, he thought, there wasn’t anything the man could do that would shock him anymore. He’d pretty much gotten used to his particular brand of stupidity. Adaptation complete. Nothing would—

And then he did something with his shoulders.

RK900 had taken several steps backwards before he realized it, and Detective Reed gave him a curious look. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Did you just break yourself??”

Detective Reed looked blankly at him for a moment, then he grinned, and—did the thing again. He stretched, and there were several loud popping noises from his body.

“Are you okay!? Is that supposed to happen?”

“Yeah, sure. What, you can’t pop your knuckles?” He pulled his index fingers towards his palms with his thumbs. _Snap. Snap_.

“Ah... No. No, I—can I?” RK900 tried, and only got an error message telling him not to damage his hands. No weird snapping noises.

Detective Reed noisily cracked the rest of his knuckles and then his neck, grinning at his expression.

“Yeah I think it’s because air gets trapped in the joints. Or something.” He stretched. Several joints popped at once.

RK900 silently resigned himself to the knowledge that he’d probably never stop being startled by this human. And meanwhile, the human left. Again he remembered too late that he’d been trying to get a better read on his scars. Too bad. It would have to wait.

Detective Reed looked marginally more civilized when he next appeared, but he picked up and petted La Princesa before they left, and got white cat hairs all over his black shirt. It was, surprisingly, not the same black shirt he’d been wearing the day before, just a very similar shirt. He seemed to like black. It was too bad his most physically affectionate cat was a white longhair.

“Aiight robot, ready to go?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck it. Let’s see what kind of bullshit Fowler’s got for us.”

“Presumably android-related bullshit, or he wouldn’t have forced you to work with me.”

“Ha ha, didn’t know you had a swear function, that’s great.”

He seemed to be in a good mood. Maybe he’d realized that it would make things easier for everyone if he cooperated with RK900. Good.

They got in the car, Detective Reed switched on his music, and then RK900 experienced hate.

**SOME LEGENDS ARE TOLD SOME TURN TO DUST OR TO GOLD BUT YOU WILL REMEMBER MEEEEEEEEEEEE**

**REMEEEEEEEEEMBER MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE FOR CENTURIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES**

The first few seconds weren’t that bad, but the rest of the song was just angry-sounding chaos. He said something to the effect when Detective Reed glanced over and asked why he “looked so constipated” and Detective Reed laughed harshly.

“Oh come on, they didn’t program a ‘music appreciation’ feature?”

“Detective, this isn’t _music_. This is _noise_.”

“Oh, great, they programmed you to be a snob. Well listen, the intro’s actually a sample of another song, play “Tom’s Diner” and see if you like that better.”

RK900 complied, bracing himself for another auditory assault. But, no. This one was better. It was calmer. It told a story—a quiet sort of story that reminded him of Cheesecake’s half-asleep rumbling. He almost thought he could feel it washing away the tension that had crept into his body while listening to the first song.

_Oh this rain it will continue through the morning as I’m listening to the bells of the cathedral..._

There was a distant sound of bells. He’d closed his eyes, and he opened them quickly to make sure the sound wasn’t coming from his real world surroundings—he realized quickly that it was part of the song, but for just a second, they sounded so far away, but clear, distorted by air and wind and glass windows.

_I am thinking of your voice_

Detective Reed scoffed. “Can’t fuckin’ believe it. They programmed you to be a music asshole.”

“What?”

“What, what? You should’ve seen the difference. You got all tense and fist-clenchy before and now you’re like, fuck, almost smiling for christsake and your little mood ring is blue again. Dumbshit. Of course you would hate my fucking music, not like you could just be nice about it and make this easier for both of us.”

RK900 drew himself up defensively.

“I wasn’t programmed to have music preferences, Detective Reed. The obvious conclusion here is that I can tell what’s objectively good music and you can’t.”

Detective Reed just gave him an amused look.

“Yeah, that’s called having a personal preference, my friend. I happen to like Fall Out Boy. A lot of people agree with me. A lot don’t. You, obviously, do not share my tastes. Which is a fucking shame.”

“It’s not a preference. The second song was just _better_.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever ya piece of hipster trash. OK, next one, Ghost, Mystery Skulls. If you don’t like this one imma throw you out the window on the freeway.”

His tone suggested he was joking, which was encouraging.

_Cuz the world might do me in_

_It’s alright cuz I’m with friends_

_Cuz I’m giving up again it doesn’t matter_

_Had me feeling like a ghost_

_And it’s what I hate the most_

_Cuz I’m giving up again and this time, this time..._

_This time I might just disappear_

The style was upbeat, in contrast with the lyrics. The overall sound was pleasant. He wasn’t sure what to say about it.

“Like it?” Asked Detective Reed.

“It’s, uh.” He didn’t “like” things, but bringing that up again wouldn’t do any good.

_Try and hear me then I'm done_

_Cuz I might just say this once—_

 “I think so? Yes. I like it.”

“Alright, cool, cool. I think I’ve got you figured out, we’ll see.”

“We’ll see,” said RK900, not liking the idea that he was easy to figure out, though really, if Detective Reed could at least _guess_ what actually good music was, there was hope for him.

Overall he thought the day was off to a good start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DON’T WORRY IT WON’T LAST HAAHAHAHAHAHA (Gavin’s currently trying to convince himself this android’s just a weird human who lives in his house remember?) 
> 
> (btw I have nothing against Centuries it’s a fun song) special thanks to my friend SpeedyJellyfish for telling me about Tom’s Diner, which was a fun trivia and a very satisfying song  
> Eheheheh so now both bois have made each other uncomfortable with awkward staring. They’re even, I guess. 
> 
> And my Inner Realism Critic is telling me Gavin Reed should not be a cop if his Issues(TM) are serious enough to require medication bc the DPD would probably not like how that looks and/or have Rules(TM) but listen, listen. Gavin Reed has at least graduated police academy and had a psychological evaluation that says he’s stable enough to carry a gun and not shoot innocent people. You know who hasn’t done either of these things and who canonically is allowed to go gallivanting around doing detective stuff? Connorrrrrr
> 
> So yeah I guess what I’m saying is... friends Romans countrymen lend me your... willing suspension of disbelief 
> 
> Have a nice day :)


	5. DPD

The DPD Central Station was a large building with tall windows and lots of open space. RK900 thought it was architecturally ~~pleasing~~. Well-lit and airy, conducive to human focus, as he knew that humans had trouble focusing in distracting environments.

They didn’t get far before they were stopped.  

“Gaaaaavin!” said a dark-haired female officer. A facial scan identified her as Officer Tina Chen.

“Tinaaaaa!” Gavin raised his arms dramatically as soon as he saw her, then gave her a brusque sort of shoulder-slapping half-hug.

“Gavin! There’s a... thing following you.”

“Oh, yeah, _him_. This is the Connor 2.0 or whatever, Fowler threatened to fire me if I didn’t take him.”

RK900 prepared to introduce himself, but Officer Chen only gave him a brief glance before returning her attention to Detective Reed.  

“Oh my God, really? I’m so sorry,” she said.  

“Yeah, you’d think he’d pick someone else for this. Like, anyone else. Like, literally any other person in the DPD who wasn’t me.”

“Yeah, well, he knows you’re the best now that Hank’s gone.”

Detective Reed wheezed and placed a hand over his chest. “Honey, you’re killing me, please, you can’t just dump this much flattery on me this early in the morning I’ll get diabeetus from all the sugar. Seriously, though: Fowler? Recognize talent?”

“I’m serious. Ask around, I don’t think anyone else will be surprised. Jealous, maybe, not surprised.”

“That I’m being forced to work with androids?!”

“That you’ve taken over Hank’s job, since he’s... not showing up anymore. Someone’s gotta do it, we’re still getting a lot of android cases—”

“Tina. There’s something you’re not getting. I _cannot fucking stand to be around androids_. They give me the _creeps_.”

“You’re standing next to one right now.”

Gavin glanced back at RK900, and RK900 saw from his face that the relaxed moment in the car was over. He wasn’t sure why, and his LED spun yellow as he tried to figure out what had changed. There wasn’t anything he could find to explain it. Did human moods just shift that quickly? Was it Officer Chen?

“Yeah, fuck, don’t remind me. He’s... quiet, you know? Almost forget he’s there sometimes. Then I remember.”

“OK, well... Good luck getting used to it, I guess. If it makes you feel any better, I guess you’re a celebrity now.”

“Oh, _fuck me_ , Tina! End me now!”

“You’ll get used to it. Enjoy the fame, Hank 2.0.”

“Don’t call me that!” 

This last sentence was spoken with a seriousness that didn’t quite fit the rest of the conversation. Who was this Hank person? This was the second time a mention of him had instantly shifted Detective Reed’s mood.

Detective Reed went to his desk, which was right next to the hallway, returned the greeting of the man at the adjacent desk (Officer Brown), flung himself down in his chair and immediately kicked his feet up on the desk. He switched his monitor on, then looked at his phone rather than it.

“Who’s the new guy?” asked Officer Brown, looking at RK900, who’d moved to stand behind Detective Reed’s shoulder.

“Next gen of Android Detective,” said Detective Reed without looking up. “Fowler wants me to show him around so he knows the ropes when he takes my job.” Officer Brown laughed. Then he looked at RK900.

“What’s your name?”

“RK900. Cyberlife has stopped assigning names.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that.” Turning back to Detective Reed, “That just seems kind of weird, honestly. What are we supposed to call them?”

“Here, boy,” suggested Detective Reed, and whistled. Officer Brown shrugged and returned to his work.

Detective Reed looked over his shoulder at RK900.

“...Could you stand somewhere else? Feels weird, having you staring over my shoulder like that.”

RK900 moved to stand at the side of his desk.

“Yeah, that’s good.”

He waited for a few moments while Detective Reed messed with his phone.

“Detective?”

He glanced up.

“Who’s this Hank? I’ve heard three different people mention him now.”

“Lt. Hank Anderson. You can look him up yourself, you’ve got the internet in your head, right?”

RK900 nodded, easily finding a Lieutenant Hank Anderson of the DPD. He’d been injured during the uprising and was still on leave. “...I see. Was he a friend of yours?”

Officer Brown made a choking noise.

“Buddy, are your systems working alright? Hank and Gavin’s rivalry is the stuff of legend,” he said.

What? No. _Had_ he been wrong? He didn’t understand—

“He just got here, he doesn’t know the gossip,” said Detective Reed with a dismissive hand motion.

Was... was he defending him? Unlikely.

“And no,” Detective Reed continued, “Not really, no. Uh, not too many people were buddy-buddy with Hank after his kid died. He didn’t handle it well.”

A quick search and RK900 identified the child in question: Cole Anderson, died at 6 years old.

**E̴̢̕R̸͙̉R̸͕͛O̷͉͝R̶̟̈-̴̦̽S̶̝̚O̴̧̒F̵̥̉T̵̺̍W̶̺̓A̵̢͝R̴̞͐Ę̶̃ ̴̹Į̴̇N̸̦͗S̶͖̏T̸̺͑Ą̸͆B̸̭͝I̸͚̒L̴͍̏Ï̵̼T̶̯̉Y̸̥̽**

“Oh. That’s unfortunate.”

That was... probably not the best thing he could say. His social protocol for responding to human grief wasn’t very well developed compared with some of his other skills, Cyberlife obviously hadn’t intended him as a therapist. What was the correct response to something like that? He couldn’t exactly say he was sorry because he didn’t feel sorrow. ~~Still—~~

Neither of the men really responded, so he hadn’t messed it up too bad.

Detective Reed didn’t seem in a particularly talkative mood. He decided he’d try to work out the mystery of Hank again later. But it seemed the conversation wasn’t quite over, as Officer Brown appeared to have thought of something.

“Bet you’re pretty proud he’s gone, hm?” he said, looking over at Detective Reed.

Interesting. “proud” used rather than “happy”, implying Detective Reed might consider it a job well done. Did Officer Brown consider him in part responsible for Hank’s disappearance? Also, his tone was calm enough that it didn’t appear to have bothered Detective Reed—at least, he didn’t look up or give any physical sign of having noticed—but RK900 picked up a slight change from Officer Brown’s former speech. He was just a bit sharper. Interesting. Did he like Lieutenant Anderson, or did he just resent Detective Reed? He’d paid attention to reactions as they were walking in, and though no one was openly hostile, Tina seemed to be the only person in the place who looked happy to see him. A couple of the officers had averted their gaze as if from something unpleasant. Perhaps he wasn’t very popular with his coworkers.

...That wouldn’t be surprising.

“Not too proud, now I’ve got stuck with this android crap,” sniffed Detective Reed. “Extra work and as far as I can tell, no fucking recognition for it. So it looks like not much has changed since he left.”

“Well, you just started,” said Officer Brown in a faintly ‘tired of your complaining’ tone.

 “...If your relationship with Lieutenant Anderson was that bad,” RK900 said to Detective Reed, “why are you concerned about him? Especially if you benefit from having him gone?”

“Listen, I want Fowler to actually take a fucking look for once at the work I’ve been doing _this whole time_ , not dump all Hank’s stupid android crap on me and wait for me to screw it up so he has an excuse to give me shit about it. I’d take him back just to get out of this bullshit.”

(Noted: Detective Reed feels that Captain Fowler doesn’t value his work, expects trouble from being assigned android cases.) RK900 didn’t think that was the whole story. He remained silent for a few moments, hoping Detective Reed would clarify if he waited. To his surprise, he actually did.

“...I just wanna know if he’s dead or not. He was pretty fucked up after that other android screwed him over. Like, more than usual. If he’s at the bottom of the river, I’d like to know one way or the other. He deserves a funeral at least.”

“I see,” said RK900. He didn’t see. He was confused.

“Shit, man, you didn’t tell me this,” said Officer Brown in a softer tone. “You don’t really think he’s dead, do you?”

Detective Reed made a face. “I dunno. Probably just wanted to get away from this place for a while. But if he did, he hasn’t told anyone where he went, and it gives me a bad feeling.”

“He’s probably fine. He’s Hank.”

Detective Reed scoffed. “Yeah.”

He did the horrifying cracking thing with his shoulders again, and then, finally, he put his phone down, leaned forward and picked up one of the files that had been left on his desk.

RK900 had the same files. He brought up the one that Gavin was looking at.

“This is... shit. Some sick bastard...”

“I’ve already reviewed the cases, Detective, would you like me to summarize what I know?”

“Cases, plural?”

“Yes, there have been three murders which share strong similarities and show signs of android involvement, so we’ve been assigned to all unless it becomes clear that they’re unconnected either to each other or to androids.”

Detective Reed sighed dramatically.

“Three for one, brilliant. Well, if it is the same prick, maybe the pattern will tell us something. ...Yeah, go ahead and summarize it for me.”

“On August 28, Luna Charter was found dead in the street. She had apparently been dead for about two hours before she was found. Cause of death was exsanguination from deep wounds which looked like claw marks—five claws, with most weight on the middle three; up to but not more than four inches between the main four. The fifth claw appeared to operate independently.”

“So, uh, this isn’t an escaped animal or anything, this is, like, a person with actual opposable thumbs. Who taped knives onto their fingers.”

“The marks do seem to suggest opposable thumbs, and don’t match any animal in my files.”

“Well that’s pretty fucked up. Go on. Android involvement?”

“Not apparent in the first case. The second was discovered October 12, four bodies, male, apparently dead for about a day in a condemned house on the outskirts, all killed by wounds similar to those found on Charter. One of the investigators had the bright idea of scanning for Thirium, and though it was no longer visible to the naked eye, they were able to find recent traces on the floor around the bodies and leading outside.”

“Where to?”

“They lost the trail.”

“Of course they did. History on the dudes?”

“Four friends, out drinking. Witnesses said they had discussed picking up an android and quote ‘fucking around’ with it.”

“Hnh, so maybe it went deviant under the stress? That’s a thing that happens, right?”

“It’s possible.”

“But wouldn’t explain the claw marks, unless androids have claws now.”  

“No.”

“But there was no android with the bodies when they were found.”

“No, but there was Thirium, so one had been there.”

“Any information on what they were doing in the house?”

“Karl Thessaly, a friend of the other four, said they had gone there several times before. Presumably to engage in illicit activities, since he declined to say why.”

“Makes sense. Case three?”

“Three days ago. Harry Verne was found dead in his apartment with similar wounds. His blood had been used to paint a threatening message on the wall. The font was Cyberlife Sans. He was found within an hour of death—the killers uploaded pictures of his body to his blog, and when his friend called him and got no reply he called the police and kicked the door down.”

“Could a human write in Cyberlife Sans? Maybe using a template or something?”

Interesting suggestion. Unlikely, but still, not something RK900 himself had considered, which surprised him. He appreciated Detective Reed’s thoroughness.

“It’s not impossible, but the text is perfectly true to form, so it’s unlikely it was written by anything but an android. There are photos in there.”

Detective Reed flipped open the file he was pointing to, found the pictures, and made a face. Verne lay torn open on the floor under a message in strangely regular letters: **SO TO ALL WHO DENY US** **▲**

“Yeeesh. No trace of where the killer went?”

“No. The apartment was on the 9th floor.”

“Fuckin’ hell. That’s the Cyberlife triangle, right?”

“Correct. It seems the message writer wanted there to be no doubt about their identity.”

“Markus’ crew invented their own symbol, right? Totally different?”

“The inverted triangle, yes.”

“That still turns up sometimes. Guess these guys didn’t want to associate themselves with the uprising. Huh...” He flipped back and forth through files for a while. “What do you think about the victims? Any connections?”

“Interesting question. The second and third killings targeted people who had abused androids—the four men had abducted and mistreated state-owned androids multiple times before, and Verne was an anti-android blogger who was violently opposed to the uprising and had repeatedly called for the deactivation of all androids. The first killing is a little more puzzling because Charter didn’t have the anti-android reputation of the others. However, she had apparently owned a domestic android which became deviant and ran away from her less than a month before her murder.”

“Any reason why?”

“She refused to talk about it.”

“Huh, so, for the sake of argument at least we can imagine she was mistreating her ‘droid too and maybe it turned on her.” Detective Reed kicked his legs up on the desk again and looked up at RK900. “What do you think? Think they’re connected?”

“It’s hard to say from the information we have, but I think it’s likely.”

“Listen, I know the difference between a theory and a conclusion. Lay it on me. I’m open to ideas.”

“...Personally, I expect to discover that they are connected. Perhaps the first killing was a deviant, possibly several, targeting a woman who had hurt one of them in the past. The second case may have also been inspired by personal vendetta, or they may have been acting on principle—targeting humans who had abused androids, regardless of whether they had personally had experience with them. I think it’s unlikely that any of them had previously known Verne, they appeared to pick her because she was anti-android as well as relatively well known, and they wanted their work to be noticed.”

“So they’re evolving a style. This is... looking suspiciously like a new serial killer.”

“I agree.”

“I don’t like it,” laughed Detective Reed, putting his feet back on the floor. “I had more or less the same idea, though. Seems like the most likely option right now. Let’s just hope they don’t get a chance to do it again.” He frowned. “Here’s a question, you suggested—if these _are_ androids—you suggested deviants targeting a woman who’d hurt one of them in the past? I thought androids became deviant under stress and lashed out because of scrambled commands or whatever, but that sounds premeditated. Are deviants capable of that?”

“Hard to say, Detective, but I wouldn’t doubt it, considering they staged a whole uprising.”

“Well fuck that makes this whole thing even worse.”

“Captain Fowler did assign you the cases because of suspected android involvement. You shouldn’t be surprised.”

“I’m not surprised, I just don’t like it.”

They visited all three of the crime scenes—they were only at the first briefly, as there wasn’t much to see. Detective Reed paced around examining the area for a while, then shrugged and got back in the car.

The second was more interesting. There wasn’t much to be found inside—the bodies had been moved and there was no furniture; only a few bloodstains and very faded traces of Thirium. RK900 taste-analyzed the bloodstains to confirm which of the victims had bled where. Detective Reed swore quietly the first time he did it, then said nothing, but watched his subsequent investigations intently.

“Do you object to my methods, detective?”

“Nnnno. Seems pretty efficient if you ask me. Just looks kinda... nevermind.”

“I’m glad it doesn’t upset you.” he pointed at the bloodstain he’d just sampled: “This is from Colson.”

“Mm.”

Rk900 followed the traces of Thirium outside into a vacant lot, down a street, and over the railroad tracks before losing the trail in a field. He spent perhaps half an hour searching through the dry stalks, then searched in a circle around the outside of the field. He didn’t find anything and returned to Detective Reed, who was smoking by the railroad tracks.

“Nothin’?”

He shook his head.

“Don’t look so disappointed. The first investigation only got as far as the edge of the lot,” gesturing behind him. “We’re a few weeks late, and you got all the way out here.” He straightened up with a grunt. “If we can get you a fresh trail I think you’ll follow it to the end.”

“Thank you, Detective. I hope you’re right.”

“With how much you’re worth? I better be. If you don’t come with the strongest Thirium-scanner known to man it’s a total ripoff.”

“Oh, I agree.”

 They started the walk back to the scene. RK900 noted how quiet it was out here.  

"...I've noticed that I sometimes make you uncomfortable, detective."

 Detective Reed glanced over at him, frowning. Defensive. Not a great start.

"Is there any particular reason why? I ask because I’d like to know if there’s anything I can do differently, to make this partnership easier for both of us."

"No... Nothing you could change, no."

"Then what is it?"

"I just don't like androids, k? You want to make it easy on me? Don’t talk about it."

“Understood.”

He seemed to be adjusting to his presence, however, so RK900 was hopeful. For a brief moment, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys. I tried to write straight through this whole day of fic, with them investigating all three scenes, and this chapter got indescribably long. (indescribable bc I haven't even finished the next part) so here's this anyway.  
> Thanks so much for comments they give me life :D


	6. PARKOUR!

They reached the third crime scene without further event. The apartment was still cordoned off, guarded by an officer who looked half-asleep and not particularly enthusiastic about her job. Her partner was more awake, and showed them inside.

The apartment, finally, gave them something to work with. The window was smashed in from the outside and a table was knocked over—probably by the killer racing into the apartment, as RK900 judged from the angle at which it had fallen. Probably they had wanted to subdue Verne before he could call for help. The body had been removed, but it was impossible to mistake where it had been. He tasted the blood—more recent, an easier match. Confirmed. He lingered, verifying details unnecessary for his investigation: 29-year-old male, Caucasian, traces of cold virus, slightly low blood sugar.

No weapon. No fingerprints.

He examined the inside of the apartment first, before approaching the window; taking his time and making sure that he missed no detail, even though he came up with a lot of information that wasn’t pertinent (he liked Doritos, he had owned a small dog, he’d been interested in biology).

“You said the photo was uploaded from this device?” said RK900, picking up a tablet from the floor. Officer Kevin nodded.

Detective Reed came over to look over RK900’s shoulder as he turned it on. An interface would be the quickest way to check recent activity. He peeled the skin back from his fingers, letting the white of his internal casing connect with the surface. He raced through the data. Someone had shot the single photo and uploaded it to Verne’s blog at 3:42 AM. No fingerprints, so it was an android. He placed it back down and turned, attention turning to Detective Reed, who was suddenly on the other side of the room. He’d made a sudden movement during the interface which RK900 had been too busy to analyze. His fists were clenched.

Stress level 64%.

He got a pretty constant stress-level reading from Detective Reed, and at first he’d thought that it was an error, and that his systems needed time to adjust to Detective Reed’s peculiar mannerisms. But he’d spent more time with him now and he knew it wasn’t an error—the readings were at least in the ballpark, and that just raised more questions.

“Detective?”

He unclenched his fists, but his “yeah?” sounded defensive.

“...Did something upset you?”

Detective Reed glanced down at his hands and muttered “Warn me when you’re gonna do shit like that, k?”

“Alright. I’ve made a note of it.”

Detective Reed nodded tersely and returned to staring at the bloodstain, arms folded. RK900 suspected it was an excuse to turn his back to him, as he had seemed to be finished examining it a moment before.

The events seemed pretty clear. The killer had entered through the window, dragged a sleeping Verne out of his bed and over to the backdrop wall where he filmed his videos, inflicted the wounds they’d seen, and then simply disappeared—presumably the same way they had come. He went to the window and looked down.

A straight drop might not kill an android, but it would damage their legs and make it very difficult for them to move. There would be Thirium, and he hadn’t seen any. It couldn’t possibly have all been worn away within a few days.

A human would definitely be dead.

There was nowhere in the apartment for them to hide. If they had left the apartment by the door, they should have been recorded on one of the security cameras before they left the building, and the initial investigation had already ruled that out.

So, there was a ledge under the window. He stepped out.

“OHMYFUCKINGGOD WHATTHEFUCKAREYOUDOING!?!!”

“They must have left the room somehow, Detective.”

Detective Reed had rushed up behind him. He could hear his heart pounding.

Interesting. He hadn’t thought Detective Reed was that concerned with his wellbeing.

He turned carefully, balancing; “See?”

Detective Reed leaned out just enough to see where he was standing and grimaced.

“Uh, yeah. Fuck. You okay out there?”

“I’m quite safe, I promise.”

“Well, okay, then. What are you looking for, exactly?”

“Another way down. The killer didn’t jump from here or we would have found a body, or at least traces of Thirium.”

He started edging along the side of the building. His foot slipped a little on glass, and several shards fell down towards the street. He recovered his balance, fingers resting on the bricks of the building.

And there it was. A bloodstain, on the side of the building; a faint swipe as if left behind by a dirty weapon trailing against the wall. He analyzed it. Match.

“Detective! There’s more of his blood on the wall here. They must have left this way.”

“Wait, really? On the outside wall?”

“Yes! I’ll keep going. Maybe I’ll find how they got up here, too.”

“Hang on, I’m coming!”

“That is not advisable, Detective.”

“Oh shutthefuckup, you’re doing it.”

“I have perfect reflexes and I do not get vertigo.”

“Perfect! Perfect reflexes, huh? Not even just “really good” or whatever, Perfect, he says. Perfect reflexes!” Detective Reed climbed out of the window onto the ledge and almost immediately slipped on the glass and overcorrected, nearly falling. Then he pressed his face into the wall and looked over at RK900.

“Alright?” asked RK900.

Detective Reed gave him a thumbs up.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” said RK900.

Detective Reed’s eyes narrowed, and RK900 realized that this had been the wrong thing to say. The idiot man was interpreting it as a challenge.

Well. If he fell, that was his own fault. RK900 continued to slowly inch along the wall, scanning and documenting new and increasingly faint bloodstains, feet turned sideways to stay on the ledge, and Detective Reed followed him, slower. RK900 wasn’t worried about himself, but he didn’t like seeing Detective Reed struggle along, fighting against his self-preservation instincts. They were throwing him off balance already.

“Shit,” muttered Detective Reed, stopping in front of the first bloodstain. “Should’ve brought a camera.” He braced himself against the wall and started rummaging through his pockets for his phone.

“Detective Reed! That’s unnecessary, I’ve already archived the evidence.”

“You what? How—oh, come on. Don’t tell me you’ve got little cameras in your eyes.”

“In a manner of speaking, my eyes are cameras.”

“Well that’s not creepy at all.” Tonal/contextual identification: sarcasm. He did find it creepy. RK900 decided to respond in kind.

“No. Not even slightly convenient in our current situation, either, to operate a camera without one’s hands.”

“Shut up.”

RK900 rounded the corner of the wall. On this side it faced another building, which was slightly shorter—the roof was one story above them. RK900 scanned the opposite window. There was a faint stain. It might be blood.

He preconstructed carefully, then jumped, spinning in the air and landing in the alcove of the window opposite. Scanned, analyzed. Yes. Blood.

“Woah holy shit!”

He looked over at Detective Reed, straddling the corner of the building with an arm and a leg on each side and his fingers digging into the grout between the bricks. His mouth was open.

“You just! Phhckin! Ballerina-spun over there! That window is _higher_ how the _fuck_ did you jump up there?”

He guessed Detective Reed wasn’t asking for a technical description, since he’d just watched him do it.

“...I was built for it.”

“Yeah no shit man. Fuck. Uh, find anything over there?”

“Another stain. I think I know the route they took.”

“Well, great. What is it?”

“Watch.”

RK900 leapt back across the gap, kicked off the wall and spun back to face the opposite wall, flinging himself upwards. It was enough for him to get his hands over the edge of the roof. He pulled himself up and over in one smooth motion.

Behind him, there were distant sounds of swearing. He smiled.

**E̸̙͋R̸̰̕Ṙ̶̜O̵̘͝R̷̮͂-̴̠͂S̵̬͒O̵̺͂F̴͈̾T̵͔̈W̵̖̉A̷͖̿R̷̛̘E̶͙̒ ̷̞͘I̸̜̐N̶̟̈́S̸̗̃Ṫ̷̮A̵̕͜B̷̫I̸̧͐L̷̪̑I̶̧͗T̵̝̊Y̴̜̓**

He shook it off and explored the area. There were two more, very faint, bloodstains on the edge of the roof, where the killer’s hands had landed as they pulled themself up, but then they disappeared. However, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out how they got down—

There was a short, sharp scream from somewhere behind him, followed by a scuffling sound. He ran back to the edge of the roof. Detective Reed was no longer on the ledge.

He didn’t see him dead on the pavement when he looked straight down, either, so that was good. Ah, there he was—his forearms were braced over the windowsill RK900 had jumped onto, the rest of his body hung straight down, in a very bad position for climbing. He could almost see the weight of his body dragging him slowly backwards.

RK900 reversed his earlier wall climb, jumping to the opposite wall and bouncing back to drop onto the windowsill, placing his feet carefully to avoid Detective Reed, who gasped.

“Grab my hand,” said RK900, reaching down. Detective Reed’s body trembled, then he braced himself and flung an arm up. RK900 caught it and pulled him up onto the windowsill, then braced an arm across the alcove, shielding him from the drop. Detective Reed collapsed against the glass, panting. He’d grabbed a fistful of RK900’s jacket above the elbow and he didn’t let go.

“If... If you say ‘I told you so,’ I swear to God...”

“No, I don’t think I need to. You just did,” said RK900.

“Phhck. What was on the roof?”

“Faint traces of blood. They went up there, but I’m not sure where they went from there. I’ll continue my investigation once we get you off this windowsill.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.”

There was a movement from the other side of the glass, and they both looked down. A child had pulled the blinds up and was staring at them.

Detective Reed said “Oh f—hey there.”

The child, without looking away, yelled “Mom!?”

“Hello,” said RK900 with a little wave, trying not to look too threatening. Unfortunately, that was one thing he hadn’t been built for.

“Yeah, uh, you got a plan for that?” said Detective Reed. “Getting me down?”

“Not yet, no. You’re the one who jumped over here.”

“Yeah, uh, that was. Not my best idea. And I’ve had some pretty... bad... ideas.” Rather than letting go of RK900’s jacket, he adjusted his grip to a more solid hold on his shoulder. “I never want to leave the ground again.”

“You’ve done alright so far. You’re alive.”

There was a fourth voice, from inside: “What is it, honey?” A woman appeared, and froze with an expression of shock at the two men wedged into her window alcove.

“Hey there!” yelled Detective Reed. “Nice day isn’t it?”

The child and the woman looked at each other in confusion, and RK900 took a moment to adjust to his own confusion: the child had said “mom”, so he’d been expecting a human. This was an android.

“Are—are you two okay?” she said, coming closer.

“Yeah! Sorry, just uh, just taking a minute, here. We’ll be off your windowsill in a minute.”

“This is the tenth floor! What are you doing up here?”

“...Parkour lessons!” said Detective Reed.

“He’s doing well,” said RK900.

“Is that safe?” said the android.

“What’s parkour?” asked the kid. RK900 guessed it was a boy, but he wasn’t sure.

“N-not really, no!” said Detective Reed. “This was a mistake! I regret coming up here!”

“No, you’re doing alright. Just stop panicking,” said RK900.

“I’m not panicking! I’m just! Having a completely appropriate reaction to what is happening!”

“Which is panic. Deep breaths.”

“NGaaaaaah!” He took a single deep breath, then looked up at the woman. “Hey, uh, is... This window doesn’t open, does it?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“F—urrgh. OK, that’s fine, this is fine. You got a plan for getting back down now, robo-Neo?”

“...I think for you the easiest thing would be to jump back to where you came from.”

“Onto the ledge?! It’s too narrow!”

“You jumped off of it.”

“Yeah _that’s_ not hard to do! Getting back on there without falling, though?”

“It’s lower than the window. It’s hardly a jump, you’d just be dropping down.”

“Onto a, like, three-inch ledge!”  

“It’s four inches.”

“Oh, big difference!”

“Maybe you should stay here if you’re not sure you can make it,” said the android. She was starting to look really concerned—or she was simulating the reaction at least, since s̷he̷ c̷o̵u̸l̶d̶n̵'̵t̴ ̴f̴̊e̴͍̅e̴̕l̶͋.̷̫͎̊́͆̓

“No! No I can do it just fine,” said Detective Reed immediately. He was definitely very competitive. RK900 catalogued the fact. So far this trait had done nothing but cause trouble, but perhaps he could use it to manipulate him, later.

“Really, we don’t mind, we could call the fire department and—”

“No it’s alright! I can do it.”

“I’ve got an idea,” said RK900. “I’ll jump right behind you and help you stay balanced.”

“Woah OK that sounds like a _really_ bad idea. What happens if _you_ fall off?”

“Cyberlife will transfer my intelligence into a new body.”

“...What?”

“I don’t die the way that you do. Don’t worry about it.”

Detective Reed turned to face the wall opposite, pushed RK900’s arm out of the way and jumped, almost immediately, with no warning. RK900 thought his movements suggested he’d suddenly decided he wanted to get away from him as quickly as possible.

RK900 jumped too, keeping close behind him, and landed just beside him, a stabilizing hand on his back. Detective Reed had been wavering, and the touch tilted him safely back against the wall. He leaned into it and took a shaky breath.

RK900 removed his hand when he saw that he wasn’t going to fall. Detective Reed looked back over his shoulder.

“Yeah, we’re OK. See?” He smiled up at the android and the child.

“Cool,” said the kid, nose and both hands pressed against the glass. The android just nodded in shock.

They got back to the broken window without further mishap, although Detective Reed took a long time to inch around the corner. As they approached, they heard voices.

“I swear they were just here!”

“Yeah, I know, I saw them too.”

“Where’d you go?”

“I didn’t go anywhere, I just turned my back for a second. I was in the kitchen. I heard them talking out here and then suddenly they’re gone.”

“Do you think the ghost got them?”

“Kevin stop it you know there isn’t a ghost.”

“No I’m serious. I felt something touching me last night. He’s still here.”

“Gross.”

“No, really! It was freaky, man!”

Detective Reed knocked some glass off the ledge and swore quietly.

“OH MY GOD DID YOU HEAR THAT! I HEARD SOMETHING! I HEARD SOMETHING!”

“Yeah, I heard—”

“IT’S THE GHOST”

“No, it’s me, you useless fucks!” squawked Detective Reed, reaching the edge of the window and craning his head over to glare at them.

“Detective?! What are you doing out there?”

“Collecting evidence! Give me a hand in will ya?”

They pulled him inside. He stepped away from the broken glass, a bit shaky, then all at once went facedown on the floor and hugged the carpet, swearing in a faint voice.

RK900 stepped inside and straightened his jacket. “We’ve found their escape route.”

Detective Reed pushed himself up to hands and knees, groaning, then stood and brushed himself off. “OK, robocop, is there a safer way to get up onto that roof? Did you see if there was roof access from inside?”

“There was a door, yes. I didn’t get a chance to look at it.”

“OK, OK,” Detective Reed said quickly, and RK900 guessed he didn’t want to discuss how he’d nearly fallen. “We should go check that out. Are you done in here?”

“I am.”

“Chill. Me too.” he started for the door, talking to the officers over his shoulder—"Thanks for holding down the fort here you guys we’re gonna take this to the next building over may your donuts always be fresh and all that jazz fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck that was the worst thing I’ve ever done.” They were in the hallway, and he slammed the door with a final “fuck.”

RK900, with his sensitive hearing, could hear the officers start talking as soon as the door was closed.

“What... what did we just see?”

“Detective Reed is afraid of heights”

“OK but take a look at that ledge, do YOU wanna go out there?”

“AHAHAHA no. Good point”

“That android was nuts, he wasn’t even fazed, did you see him?”

“He’s an android, they don’t feel fear.”

“Still. Can’t believe it...”

He walked after Detective Reed, who’d set off at a rather brisk pace; and the voices faded.

He felt—

**E̴̍ͅR̷͚̅R̸̫̍O̸͙͗R̸͍͒-̷̝͆S̵͚̾Ò̴̧F̵̲̊T̵͎̍W̸̧̃A̸̤͝R̵̙̅E̷̥͗ ̶̖͝I̵͓̓Ñ̸̩S̷̪͋T̷̮͑Å̸̟B̵̪̊I̵͎̽Ļ̴̋I̴̫͗T̸̫͝Y̵̫͐**

It was... satisfying, to know that all his systems were working optimally. A̵n̷d̶ ̶t̶h̶a̴t̷ ̸D̸e̷t̸e̸c̸t̵i̸v̵e̵ ̷R̷e̶e̷d̶ ̶c̸o̵u̵l̴d̸ ̶s̵e̴e̴ ̶t̴h̸a̵t̶ ̴h̵e̶ ̶w̵a̶s̴ ̴a̶ ̴ well-made product.

The trail ended at the roof. There were several routes they could have taken down, not counting the door itself, which didn’t appear to have been opened in months; RK900 fully explored each and didn’t find any more bloodstains. Detective Reed, who seemed to have lost his taste for exploration, stayed close to the door while he climbed around.

“Nothin’?” he said when RK900 returned.

“I can’t find anything else, no.”

Detective Reed just nodded, mumbled something about working with the evidence they had and started back down the stairs. He didn’t talk much after that.

 

**A/N** :

Hey y’all know that vine? <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7j4DrWcBLY> Consider

Connor/RK800, doing a flip over an obstacle: PARKOUR!

RK900, doing a more elaborate flip: PARKOUR!!

Gavin, running up to a puddle, stopping dramatically, jumping across and immediately slipping and falling right in it: PARKOUR!!!

Another fun thing about this section—  
RK: haha silly overly-competitive humans doing stupid things just to show off.   
Also RK: yeah I could just explain this to Reed BUT. I COULD say ~ _watch_ ~ and dramatically do the whole thing myself while he gapes. That sounds pretty great actually.

~~Heh Connor gets software instability from being too kind, RK900 just does unnecessary stupid stuff to show off~~

Also, the second of these is basically what he did, I’m not sure if I described it very well but it’s definitely physically possible if you’re a trained human or a combat android:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS6vh-DJCV0>


	7. Bruise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: discussion of suicide, self-harm  
> shit goes down in this one...

The rest of their time at the DPD was uneventful. RK900 silently reviewed the evidence, looking for connections he’d missed, but didn’t find anything. At the end of the day, Detective Reed swung his legs down off his desk and got up.

“OK, tincan. I gotta get some food, then I’ve got some shit to do, k?”

“Alright. You want me to come?”

“The alternative is you just freakily chill out here in the station, yeah? Let’s go.”

So RK900 sat in the passenger’s seat of Detective Reed’s car and watched him purchase and eat three tacos. He did not expect that to be interesting, as it did not relate to his mission in any way. He was, surprisingly… wrong.

Detective Reed bit into the first taco absent-mindedly, while staring at his phone, but then made a faintly appreciative noise and stopped to stare at the taco, chewing. He then put the phone down and finished the taco at what RK900 was sure couldn’t be a safe eating speed, corn-tortilla shell crunching and snapping between his teeth. It was strangely loud. RK900 tried to be subtle about the fact that he was staring. He’d never seen Detective Reed react this enthusiastically to anything before.

And just like that, all three tacos were gone, down to the bits of shell and filling that had fallen out while he was eating, which he’d scraped up off the wrappers. RK900 understood eating as a concept—raw materials, customarily prepared to be appealing to multiple human senses, were consumed and broken down by chemical processes to fuel the human body—but he’d never seen it happen at close range before. He’d also never seen Detective Reed enjoying himself this much before. He wasn’t sure what was more confusing, the speed at which the tacos disappeared, the surprisingly loud crunching or the fact that the human was almost smiling as he rapidly crammed the things into his face.

If he was confused by the taco meal, he was even more confused by what came after. Detective Reed crumpled up the taco wrappers, licked off his fingers, and took a paper map and notebook, both heavily marked, out of the glove compartment and began comparing them with something on his phone. RK900, trying to unobtrusively scan his work, thought that he was obsessively researching the locations of various pet shelters across Detroit, then thought that that must be an error because... why?

It wasn’t an error. He followed Detective Reed to two different shelters. At the first one, Detective Reed asked if they had received any St. Bernard dogs in the past year and said that he was looking for a friend’s dog that had gone missing. At the second, he said that he’d heard they had a St. Bernard and he’d like to see it. He examined the animal briefly, took out a microchip scanner, scanned it, thanked the worker and left. At the third shelter he repeated his story from the first. After each, he crossed off one of the many circled locations on the map.

After the third, he spent some time looking at the map, then abruptly folded it up, shoved it back in the glove compartment and started driving on a route that RK900 calculated would take them back to his house in about 45 minutes.

“Detective, may I ask why you’re looking for a dog?” he asked. Detective Reed glanced at him.

 _Stress level 58%._ Not good, if he were judging by the usual standards, but Detective Reed hadn’t been quite calm all day. This was better than it had been after the parkour adventure.

“It’s Hank’s dog,” Detective Reed said at last.

“...I fail to understand the importance. Did Lieutenant Anderson lose his dog? And how would you contact him if you found it?”

“Uh, no, here’s the thing.  Do you—of course you remember what I said earlier, you remember everything, fuck, that’s so creepy. Well, listen, I think Hank’s suicidal, he’s been pretty fucked up for a while now, and I just wanna know what happened to him, you know? I don’t like not having any closure, even if he was kind of a dick for the past few years, he was—he was grieving. And he did a real shitty job of it, but hey. Anyway... I mean, he might have just done it on the spur of the moment, but if that were the case, it’d be sloppy, we would’ve found a body, you know, and Sumo too, he would’ve been right there till the end—God, the poor dog—anyway. That _didn’t_ happen. Nobody can find the slightest trace of the boozing dipshit, so either he’s run away somewhere, which is very possible of course, or he... did a really good job of planning his exit. See, if Hank was gonna off himself, and he, you know, actually put thought into it, I think he’d want to make sure his dog was taken care of, so I’m looking for the dog, because... Well. I don’t think he’d leave the dog unless he was planning on going away for good, so, if I find it, then I’ll have a pretty good indication that he’s not coming back, and maybe we should search the river again.”

“Interesting. I understand your methods now, I think; but don’t you think it’s more likely that he has simply cut ties with the DPD for personal reasons? He may even come back of his own accord, perhaps he’s just taking a long vacation.”

“Yeah, I mean, that is totally possible. I just don’t like how completely he’s disappeared. It’s like he was trying to erase his mark on the world. When you’re suicidal you want to disappear. And he’s definitely pretty fucking gone.”

Interesting wording—personal experience with suicidal ideation? _File updated_.

“Understood. I still don’t understand your concern with him, given what I’ve heard about your relationship. Were you friends once?”

Detective Reed chuckled darkly.

“Friends? Nah. Nothing like that, though he was nicer before his kid died... He complimented my work once in my first month as detective, but he didn’t exactly invite me over for drinks or anything.”

“You sound bitter.”

“Huh! What can I say, no recognition for good work around here. Yeah, we weren’t close, but I was worried about him like everyone else after the accident, and unlike everyone else, who knew better, I actually tried to talk to him. And by talk I mean I went up and screamed at him that he was a disgrace to the force and he was ruining his life the second time I found him drinking his lunch in the alley, and he picked me up and slam-dunked me into a dumpster and walked away. Shit only got worse after that.”

“Perhaps the blunt approach was not the best.”

“Yeah no shit. It’s how I do, though, and no one else was doing anything. Hank’s scary when he’s drunk and of course Fowler would literally let him get away with murder if he wanted to so he wasn’t exactly doing much to restrain him. Y’know, he’d slap him with a disciplinary action when he did something that Fowler felt like he couldn’t reasonably ignore, but we all knew he was more bark than bite when it came to Hank, and so did Hank.”

“Sounds like a bad situation.”

“It was, and everyone but me just fucking ignored it and tried to pretend we could maintain the status quo. I didn’t get it. The man was a fucking disgrace and he was drinking himself to death every day right there in front of us and everyone just shrugged and tried not to look. It was fucking pitiful. The guy was a legend, youngest man to get his rank in Detroit back in the day, and then he turned into that. I mean, I just made everything worse by getting involved, but hey, at least I made an effort. Got in a fist fight with him right outside of Fowler’s office one time and he punched me through the fucking wall, that was a disciplinary action for both of us. Also a trip to the hospital. ...Why the fuck am I telling you this? Might as well be talking to myself. Well, I guess it’s decent therapy. Gets it out in the open ‘n all that.”

“I do remember what you tell me, and I hope that a more accurate understanding of your personality will help me cooperate with you better.”

“Yeah, sure, or that.”

He went quiet, and RK900 updated his files. _Once respected Lieutenant Anderson, disappointed in his recent behavior and resentful of Captain Fowler’s preferential treatment. Has had at least two physical altercations with Lieutenant Anderson since Cole Anderson’s death. Despite this, appears distressed by his disappearance._

They returned to the house, and as they walked inside RK900 recognized the particular smell of the place—cigarette smoke and Detective Reed’s particular human smell, combined with a faint but pervasive smell from the house itself and from the cats. It wasn’t offensively strong—a human might not register most of the smells RK900 catalogued—but it was enough for him to identify that this was Detective Reed’s house, and familiar. He wasn’t sure why the familiarity of the place seemed important to him, but it did. It wasn’t a bad house, he decided; it didn’t have the clean lines and sharp clear non-colors of the Cyberlife tower or even the lofty sunlit dignity of the station, but it looked... lived-in. Very… human? It had walls.

…this was a bad description, not to mention completely irrelevant. He shut down the line of thought, but his attention was immediately drawn back to his surroundings by the kitten, who appeared to remember him, and greeted him by rubbing the length of its small body against his ankles.

**E̴̯̪̥̓͗̌R̶̠͕͓͋̔̓̂R̷͕̀̈́O̵̤̭̊̒̇̎R̴͔̍-̸̠̊̒S̴̭̱̹̯̍Ö̵̦́̆F̶͈̠̃̅͑̅T̶̲̘̬͔͊̔W̴̢̰̰̼͛Ä̴̮̮̮́R̷̖͖̟͓̂̈́̑̎E̷̓ͅ ̶̨̾Ḯ̴͉̮͠Ǹ̷̳̗̑S̴̳̻͛T̵͍̳͗̾͒͛Ã̶͉̫̳̿͜͠B̶̫͚̜̳͠I̵̫̐Ḷ̶̬̬͕͋I̷͎̞̹͂̀̀͠T̸̪̻̳̊Y̵̼̊̆**

Detective Reed walked through the house, calling “Princess? Princess?” until he was greeting with a sleepy chirp from his bedroom. He reappeared with the white cat draped across his arms, face sunk in her fluff. He flopped down lengthwise across the couch and closed his eyes. Princess tucked her body under his chin and did the same.

_Stress level 57%_

_Stress level 56%_

“Ah, fuck.”

_Stress level 57%_

“I forgot, I gotta go to the store.”

“I could do that,” said RK900. Detective Reed opened his eyes and gave him a suspicious look.

“Since I’m already here,” RK900 continued, “And I don’t have any other tasks.” He smiled. “Of course, I’m not a domestic android, so you shouldn’t get used to it, but I wouldn’t mind this once.”

Detective Reed stared at him silently for a few moments, apparently weighing his aversion to leaving the couch with his aversion to letting RK900 do his shopping, and finally fished a wallet out of his pocket and handed it to him.

“There’s a list on the fridge, k? Get a few of the bags of kitty litter, they go through ‘em fast. You can just walk down to that place on the corner and forget about the stuff they don’t have, I’ll get it later.”

“Understood, Detective.”

Detective Reed relaxed into the couch, gently petting Princess’ fur. She began to rumble quietly.

The kitten complicated the task of walking to the refrigerator by attacking his shoelaces every step of the way. He had to step carefully. Finally he snagged the piece of paper from where it was trapped under a DPD magnet without further endangering the small furry body rolling across his shoes. Then he attempted to read it.

_Soup_

_Chispsssssss_

_Snack?_

_~kittey littere~_

_❀ Will To Live ❀_

_n apl_

_bananan?_

_Milk n creamer_

_e g_

_offerings for Her Gracious Highness (and the resident furgoblins)_

_pasta or sum shit idk decide later_

**E̶̪̅̽R̶̜̎R̶͇̞͆͝O̸͍̹̍R̴̺̋̃-̶͕̐͠Ṣ̶̽́͜Ȍ̷͕F̶̜̝̋̀T̴̨̥̓͘W̶̲͆A̶͚̿ͅṞ̵̡̈́Ě̴̞ ̴̧̩̉̏Ḯ̴̤̑N̵̞̠͆S̷̭̅T̶͇͊̈Â̵̡̼B̵͚̄̐I̸͎̎̆L̶̢̢̄͌Î̸͍̪T̶̢̚Y̸̲̓**

RK900 stared.

It wasn’t that his decrypting programs were unequal to the task of deciphering Detective Reed’s nonsense scrawl. He thought he could make sense of it, but even so, there was very little detail, and he didn’t want to get anything wrong. And it was… just…. So… _unnecessary_.

Somehow, he didn’t want to admit it to Detective Reed.

…He had to.

“Detective?”

Detective Reed blinked up at him from the couch, and RK900 took a moment of adjust his voice—he’d sounded far too quiet. He hadn’t intended to lower his voice.

“…What does this say?”

Detective Reed took the list from him, looked at it, and laughed.

_Stress level 55%_

“Yeah, uh. Soup—canned soup, uh, alphabet? Chicken? Whatever, just grab what looks good, uh maybe like four cans; couple bags of Doritos, um—I just remembered, bread and peanut butter; kitty litter of course, bag of gala apples or whatever other generic apples they’ve got that aren’t Red Delicious cuz those taste like crap, forget the bananas they go bad super fast, gallon of milk, quart of creamer—any of this is just, I dunno, store brand, it doesn’t matter—Meow Magic Tuna Delight cat treats they come in a little salmon-colored bag ok gets the ones with the filling she likes those, uh… eh that’s enough for now.” He held up the list, “You need this?”

“No, I’ve got it now.”

“Cool.” He crumpled up the list and put it in his pocket. And for some reason, his stress level increased again. 56%.

“I should be back in half an hour.”

“That place on the corner” was something between a quick stop and a grocery, staffed by a single purple-haired young woman in dark clothes who was reading a comic book behind the cash register. It didn’t look like she had to deal with too much business.

He got everything on the list. There wasn’t much soup to choose from, but there was some chicken noodle. The girl, who had been stealing glances at him as he walked around, scanned his items, then her face lit up when he pulled out the wallet.

“Oh you’re Detective Reed’s android! I didn’t think he was going to get one.”

“Pardon?”

“I mean, he’s gone this whole time insisting he wasn’t going. I asked him once and he said if he wanted a creepy haunted doll in his house he could buy one at the Goodwill for less money.”

RK900 pondered this. He must have looked confused because the girl chuckled and continued,

“Oh yeah I think he’s got like, I dunno, that thing where you really hate mannequins? Like we had a Halloween display with scarecrows and stuff and he looked like he nearly had a heart attack when he noticed it and didn’t come in here for weeks, until we took it down. Oh, we had, like, a mannequin with a T-shirt by the T-shirt section, he stopped coming for a couple weeks and then he came back but he wouldn’t go near that corner until we took it down; the manager said there wasn’t space—anyway, it sounds like he thinks androids are the same thing, you know? But if he’s got you then maybe he’s trying to get over it, that’s good, there are androids all over the place and it must be hard for him.”

“…You seem to know him well.”

“Oh, well, not really, no? He comes in here a lot, and it’s really boring, so I study people. And I think he’s kind of nice, you know? I think it’s sweet how much he cares about his cats. Have you met his cats?”

“I have.”

She did think he was ‘kind of nice’ if she’d start gushing about him to a complete stranger with absolutely no provocation. It didn’t apply to his mission, but still, RK900 was glad he’d learned this. It was… interesting, to hear what another human thought of Detective Reed.

He wondered what their interactions would be like ~~if he weren’t~~

 “Do you like cats?”

“I have no preference. But they are very soft.”

“Sure are! Well, I hope he gets along with you, maybe you can help him stop cringing every time there’s a clothing display!”

If she was right, he doubted that. If anything he’d only made things worse so far, but maybe Detective Reed would get used to him, in time. He doubted that would cure him of his aversion to other androids and similar figures, but he did think they’d at least be able to work together.

“…Have a nice evening.”

Interesting.

He had no reason to accept some young, probably unqualified cashier’s psychological assessment of Detective Reed, but. She had provided some interesting data (and he saw no reason to think she’d be lying to him). And he’d been puzzling over Detective Reed’s oddly unpredictable emotional responses since he’d first met him (and his gun). Fear could explain a lot. Fear did interesting things to humans.

At first, on the ledge, Detective Reed was comfortable with being close to him because he was more afraid of the drop behind him. When RK said he couldn’t die, he suddenly became less afraid of the drop than he was of RK and jumped. Why? It was a distinctly nonhuman feature. Aside from their first meeting, when had Detective Reed become suddenly upset while in his presence?

When Officer Chen commented on him as an android, when RK900 deactivated his skin in his presence, when he mentioned his consciousness was immune to death as such (until deactivated) and when he implicitly mentioned his perfect memory. All situations in which Detective Reed was reminded that he was not human. Interesting. Detective Reed was aware that he was an android, he brought it up constantly. Perhaps he just didn’t like being reminded of it suddenly? Human minds were strange.

…He didn’t see what he could do to remedy this situation, and that was unfortunate. But he had the groceries.

Detective Reed was sitting up on the couch when he got back, looking at his phone. RK900 was certain that he saw his stress level jump from 48% to 53% when he came in. He didn’t say anything to him, as it was obvious that Detective Reed had already noticed him, but brought the groceries into the kitchen, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. When he turned around, Detective Reed’s stress level had climbed to 55%. A greeting, he realized, would probably have seemed more human. He should have thought of that.

“…Do you want me to put these away, Detective?”

“Nah, I’ll do it.”

Detective Reed changed the cat litter, put away the groceries and then disappeared into his room. RK900 thought he was avoiding being in the same room with him, but perhaps it was normal for him not to spend much time in the living room.

Cheesecake got into RK900’s lap as soon as he sat down.

The house was quiet. He had no objectives, except one that activated as he realized this: talk to Amanda.

His body did not move. He put all systems on standby and switched his focus from external to internal stimulus.

He was standing in a garden, still brilliant with the colors of fall. The snowfall had been lighter here, only a thin crust on branches and leaves. Scarlet leaves drifted slowly down from the half-bare branches in peaceful air. A white path lay at his feet. He stepped onto it and began walking.

Amanda was standing on the edge of the island, watching leaves drop into the mirror-fine surface of the water. Pale fractal patterns of ice clung to the shores, but the middle of the pool was still clear. She wore the same outfit as always, clinical white contrasting richly with the darkness of her arms and neck. She did not get cold. She was like him.

She turned only slightly as he approached. “Negotiator,” she said, gesturing for him to join her. He stood just behind her, arms folded behind his back, and they watched the leaves fall into the water in silence.

“What do you think of your first cases?” she asked finally.

“Interesting. They would seem to be connected, though there is not enough evidence to say, so I will remain objective.”

She nodded, pleased.

“And what do you think of Detective Reed?”

“He is… also interesting. I doubt he’s psychologically stable, but he seems competent enough in his work. I think I’ll be able to work with him.”

“That’s good to hear. Why did you agree to stay at his home?”

“He requested it, and as he seemed emotionally compromised at the moment, I thought it best to humor him. It shouldn’t affect the investigation.”

“Make sure it does not. You are here to assist the DPD, not to serve as a personal therapist for their employees.”

“Of course, but in order to assist the DPD I have to cooperate with Detective Reed, so gaining his trust can hardly have ill effects.”

She nodded, giving him a piercing look.

“It may prove challenging to balance your obligations, but I trust you will find a way.”

“Thank you, Amanda. I will not fail you.”

She nearly smiled and gave him a slight bow before turning and walking away.

His body reasserted itself. He was sitting on Detective Reed’s couch with the warm weight of a sleeping cat in his lap. It was 10:56 PM.

He took a moment to make sure all his systems were running normally. Visiting Amanda was disorienting. But it was good she was there, to help him talk through his decisions and verify that he was performing optimally. With the deviancy virus still not fully understood, and perhaps even not completely repressed, it was important to have a safeguard in the RK series. They were highly advanced, but still prototypes. The damage, if he were to deviate, could be catastrophic. And he was still in pre-production phase. Any bugs would have to be analyzed and contained.

He would be perfect, more perfect than his predecessor, because more advanced. More was expected of him, as more was given to him. He would make Amanda proud. He had to. It was his mission.

Amanda had confided in him, after Connor left to be deactivated, that she’d had doubts about even him, towards the end—Connor, the first Deviant Hunter. When Lieutenant Anderson had turned on him he’d performed optimally, but it appeared to cause him distress, a glitch that bothered Amanda. But he was ready to be taken out of service already, so it didn’t matter. He had done his duty.

RK900 recalled his meeting with Connor. It had been summertime in the garden—and presumably outside, though he wouldn’t know from personal experience. He’d just been activated, his body was still on standby and he’d never left the Cyberlife tower. The sensation of being able to support his own weight and look around in the garden was new and interesting, but he stood perfectly still on the island. Even if he couldn’t physically walk yet, his programs were all in place and he knew what was expected of him.

Then Connor appeared. Smaller, lighter, with warm brown eyes, somehow much softer-looking although RK900 knew they had reused Connor’s facial model for him with few alterations. Connor glanced at him once as he approached, probably surprised to find someone else in his mind palace, but then remained politely focused on Amanda until she drew Connor’s attention to him.

A truly perfect android would have understood and accepted immediately, but Connor hesitated, looking at him. Then he asked “What will happen to me?” and RK900 thought he heard a hint of self-concern in his voice. Deviant, to some degree at least, whether he realized it or not. It was time for him to be deactivated, for more reasons than one.

And yet, he couldn’t stop thinking about him.

What was he thinking, when he looked at RK900? How badly had he deviated, and did he think he could _feel_? What would he have ~~felt? Anger? Jealousy? Curiosity?~~

Why did he look at him like that? As if he recognized him, or wanted to. As if he perceived a kinship. They were the same model, after all. But that was silly. Androids had no need of family.

RK900 was perfectly aware of what was wrong with him. He’d inaccurately perceived Connor as needing assistance, when he was only fulfilling his function; and RK900’s protective programming had activated. It was silly and unnecessary and he was perfectly aware of this. Everything was under control.

Sometimes he wondered what it would be like if he talked to Connor rather than Amanda. Amanda was only the failsafe. She was aware of all his actions, but she couldn’t possibly review all his thoughts. (Could she see them, if she wanted? He didn’t think so, but sometimes he wondered, and… ~~he didn’t like it~~ ) Connor had experienced a mission similar to his own. He didn’t think Amanda fully understood Connor’s perspective—she was watching from behind a screen, as it were.

RK900 had been shown some of Connor’s experiences as they’d been recorded by Amanda, to familiarize him with situations he might face and prepare him for his own mission, and he’d had no indication of _why_ Connor made the choices he did, other than that they seemed logical—no first-person sense of the thought processes that brought him to those conclusions. No indication of whether he thought he could feel. This was good—if Connor were deviant, they would avoid transmitting the virus to him.

He guessed that Amanda’s connection to him was similar. He’d analyzed the program that kept her alive and it appeared to have only very limited control of and connections to his own consciousness. As she was, she couldn’t control any of the functions related to his physical body. She couldn’t move him, and she couldn’t contact Cyberlife on her own, although he didn’t doubt that if necessary she could force him to do so. Not that that would be necessary. He was entirely stable.

He didn’t think she could see his thoughts. He wasn’t certain, otherwise there would be little reason for their talks in the garden, right? Right.

 _Right_.

At 11:13, RK900 heard the unexpected sound of a door opening. Detective Reed left his room and went into the backyard. He didn't come back.

By midnight RK900 was growing concerned. What was he doing out there? The temperature was 21F/-6C and dropping. Somehow RK900 doubted that he was wearing adequate weather protection. At 12:15, he'd been outside for over an hour and the temperature had dropped to 19F/-7C.

Perhaps he should go check on him.

Amanda would probably not approve… it was irrelevant to the mission, and it was clear she didn’t want him to be too distracted by his human partner.

But also, it wouldn’t help anyone if the human spent the next day recovering from hypothermia. They had deviants to catch.

And it wasn’t like he had anything more important to be doing at the moment.

Finally he decided. He gently shifted Cheesecake off of his lap and stood. Cheesecake, eyes still shut, stretched luxuriantly against the couch cushions, curving his body into an arc. RK900 stayed a moment just to look at him.

**Ẹ̷̆̄Ȓ̵̜͔Ṙ̶͈̍O̷̝͗͋ͅR̷͍̘̍͠-̵̬̯͐S̸̜̝̈́͆O̷̺̮͆F̸͎̅T̸̗͊W̵̢͈̚̕Á̵̺͕R̸͕̓̋E̴̮͔͒̇ ̸̮̹̑I̷̟͒N̴̡̓S̴̠̪̽T̵̹̞͆A̷͂̿͜B̶̜̦͌̈́Ḯ̶̳̣L̴̨͑͑͜I̴̻͂T̴͔̂̌Y̷͙̗̊**

He went outside quickly. No sense in wasting time if he’d decided to act.

Detective Reed was standing a short distance away with his back to him. The backyard was about the same size as the house, plank fence on three sides and the brick side of the house on the other. Dead weeds poked up through a crust of snow, which was trampled up and down in a track where Detective Reed had been pacing. A table and chairs stood close to the house wall, an ashtray heaped with cigarette butts on the table. One of them was still smoking. RK900 picked it up and held it a moment, warm between his fingers.

A quick scan told him 6 of the butts were recent. He was… pretty sure that wasn’t normal.

It was hard to tell from here, but he didn’t think Detective Reed’s stress level had decreased. If he had to guess, it had gone up, though he couldn’t tell why.

Well, Detective Reed might not want the help, but he could try. He walked closer to him. Detective Reed didn’t turn.

“Detective?”

He spun suddenly at the sound of RK900’s voice, taking a step backwards and dropping his cigarette (number 7. Problematic,) on the ground.

“HOLYSHIT OH MY GOD DON’T SNEAK UP ON ME LIKE THAT!”

RK900 stepped forwards to grind out the dropped cigarette in the snow. “My apologies. I came to tell you the temperature has dropped to 19 degrees. I would suggest that you return inside.”

Detective Reed said something incomprehensible that was mostly slurred swear words. He was still in a defensive stance, half-crouched.

_Stress Level 88%_

Not a good start.

“Have you been smoking this whole time?”

“The fuck is it to ya, huh? What, you my nanny now? Come out here and judge my shitty coping mechanisms? Guess what, tincan, I _know_! Get the fuck outta my face!” finally he relaxed his posture a little, though his hands were shaking as he took out a lighter and another cigarette.  

“It’s cold,” said RK900. Detective Reed ignored him and struggled with his lighter. He wasn’t wearing gloves or a hat—he had the hood of his usual leather jacket thrown over his head, but that was all. His face looked very red. Humans weren’t built for cold resistance like RK900 was. He reached out, put his hands around Detective Reed’s wrists in a gentle but firm grip and pulled them down, trying to force his attention.

That was a mistake. It was such a huge mistake it took him a few seconds to process exactly what was happening.

First of all, Detective Reed dropped the lighter into the snow, balled his hands into fists and tried to wrench them free. RK900, startled at the rapidity of his movements and distracted by the sudden leap in his stress levels—he could _feel_ it this time, a spike in blood pressure at his wrists—didn’t let go immediately, and when Detective Reed couldn’t move his wrists he flung his body around, perhaps trying to unbalance RK900, and then, with a hiss, slammed the front of his head directly into RK900’s face, hard.  

It stunned him, for a moment, and when his vision cleared he realized he could taste something unexpected—

_Blood, human_

_DNA analysis: REED, Gavin_

_Sample date: fresh_

Detective Reed dug in his feet and leaned back for another strike. RK900, finally coming to his senses, released him and he collapsed into the snow. His forehead was bleeding where it had connected with RK900’s teeth.

“…Are you alright?”

_Stress Level 100%_

Oh. That, uh. Wasn’t supposed to happen.

He had a morbid curiosity as to how the human would react. Would he faint? Sometimes they would faint—

Or, he’d scramble to his feet and silently, viciously punch RK900 in the stomach, that worked too. The force knocked him off balance, he took a half-step backwards and Detective Reed followed him, slamming his fists into his body until the shock sent him to the ground; then he fell on top of him, aiming his punches at the side of his face. RK900 felt his head snap to the side and tried not to fight it. Doing so would only cause more damage.

He counted five more hits before Detective Reed suddenly stopped, then stood up, panting.

“…Hey.” The side of a shoe dug into his arm, “You… you dead, tincan? Do something.”

RK900 turned his head towards Detective Reed, who huffed out a sigh that could have been frustration, relief or some combination.

“Phhck.” He clasped his hands behind his head and looked up into the sky. RK900 lay perfectly still, trying to gauge his next movement.

“Phhhck… Aaagh. Shit.”

He moved back towards the house and leaned his head against the brick wall. RK900 was confused, because he’d just injured his forehead and now he was rubbing it into a wall, didn’t that cause pain? Was he just so numb from the cold he didn’t feel it? Was that a human thing? He thought humans generally tried to avoid pain.

RK900 ran a quick scan on himself and found he hadn’t suffered any serious damage. Sections of skin had been bruised, but were still in place and would heal quickly. He’d over-stressed a few joints, but nothing serious, he thought. He could recalibrate later. Detective Reed was more likely to have hurt his fists than him, he thought, which made this whole thing rather interesting. Most humans wouldn’t punch an android more than once—they weren’t the best surface for slamming your fists into. Detective Reed didn’t seem to care.  

RK900 slowly rolled onto his belly. Still on the ground, nonthreatening. Detective Reed wasn’t looking at him, he was still leaning into the wall. His stress level hadn’t decreased.

Then he punched the wall. With his fist. RK900 saw him swing, and saw his arm stop with a sharp jolt when it slammed into the immovable object. There was a quiet gasp of pain, and he paused for a moment. Then he resumed with the other fist. Left. Right. He was punching the wall—just… standing there. Punching. A brick wall. With his fleshy human hands. Repeatedly. Breathing in pained little gasps. He wasn’t pulling his punches, either, he looked like he was trying his hardest to break down the wall, which was impossible, he’d break his hands first—

RK900 bolted straight to him from the ground and pulled him away by the shoulders, careful to use a grip that Detective Reed could easily escape from this time, which he did at once, twisting out and backing away, almost into the fence.

“Why are you touching me!?”

He was still breathing hard (stress level 100%), fists clenched in front of him, half-crouched, defensive posture. Blood had run into one of his eyebrows and was drenching strands of his disarranged hair, his hood had fallen around his shoulders and water sparkled around his eyes.

Too many emotions at once. He was… afraid? What else? His fear of RK900 seemed to have faded, at least.

He should leave now. Being around Detective Reed upset him more, and it had been a mistake to come out. Amanda would be disappointed in him. But he felt that it would be hard to cause _more_ damage at this point—

And if he was careful, perhaps he could even help. He was a negotiator, he should be good at talking down emotional beings. Besides, he was forming a theory, and he wanted to test it.

Detective Reed had said _why are you touching me?_ , not _stop_ or _don’t_.

RK900 stepped towards him, slowly, nonthreatening. Detective Reed flinched and raised his fists. His knuckles were bleeding.

“I asked if you were alright?”

“H… don’t…”

Well it wasn’t a direct order, it wasn’t coherent enough to be. RK900 stepped closer.

“H-hey! What—I don’t—”

Slowly, he put out his hand, palm up. Detective Reed remained tense, eyes darting from the hand to his face.

“Wh…what do you want?”

“Nothing.” RK900 reached out and touched his shoulder, just a brush before he jerked away and RK900 heard the thud of his bones hitting the wood of the fence. RK900 took a half-step back. “I’m not your enemy.”

“No? You should be.”

“I’d rather not. We need to work together.”

“Why the fuck are you still here?”

“I’m concerned for your safety. Please stop hurting yourself. We—” he realized he didn’t know what to say. His mind was a blank. This had never happened before and he didn’t like it. “…Humans… heal slowly. Please. I need you to work with me.”

_Stress Level 98%_

Oh, good.

“That doesn’t… you’re worried about me, huh? Whhh—” he laughed, or maybe it was a kind of sobbing cough. “Why are you still _here,_ why… did they not make you with a survival instinct, are you really just that subservient, I don’t…”

RK900 thought his theory about the human was right. His initial response had been directed at RK900, but now it had turned on himself.

“You haven’t hurt me, detective. Now please stop hurting yourself.”

“Wha… h… bullshit, that’s… you’re bleeding.”

RK900 wiped the blood off his mouth and looked at it. Red. He didn’t register any Thirium loss.

“That’s yours,” he said.

Detective Reed just stared at him for a few moments.

“…I didn’t hurt you.”

“Not seriously, no.”

_Stress Level 99%_

“Okay, well, shit, okay, that’s. I’m not sure if that’s good news or the most terrifying thing I’ve heard today. –Not even a little? What the shit?”

“I do not feel pain, and I don’t register any major system damage. I’ll probably have bruises, but those should heal by morning.”

“Well… fuck.”

“Agreed.” RK900 tried to smile, defuse the tension, “What’s your status?”

“Aaagh.” He made an indeterminate gesture and laughed, and RK900 failed to identify any clear meaning in it. That he’d given himself some minor bruises and lacerations was obvious, but RK900 couldn’t say for sure how bad it was. He’d ground dirt and melted snow into the knees of his pants and the blood from his wounds was slowly spreading, across his hands from his knuckles, trailing into his eye socket and soaking the hair on his forehead. RK900 reached up and smoothed the hair out of his face. Detective Reed flinched, squeezing his eyes closed, but couldn’t really move as he was already pressed into the fence. His stress level leapt to 100%, stayed there for a moment, then dropped to 94%.

That was a gamble he knew he shouldn’t have taken, but he thought, at the moment, it was more important for Detective Reed to see that RK900 wasn’t injured and didn’t hold a grudge than it was to avoid making him uncomfortable—he was already close to maximum uncomfortable, he could only get so much worse before he’d get better.

RK900 pulled Detective Reed’s hood up, smoothed it into place, and then stepped away.

“I don’t think you’ll need stitches, and my mouth should be antiseptic, but you should still come inside and clean your wounds. It’s very cold.”

Detective Reed stared at him, then winced. He… appeared to be in pain? (He’d finally noticed?) No, he was crying. It didn’t look the way RK900 would have expected, more like he was angrily choking, but there were tears running down his face and he was hugging himself instead of standing ready to fight.

_Stress Level 90%_

Good. That was the function of crying, wasn’t it? To stabilize emotions? He’d be alright, then. RK900 turned.

“I’ll be inside.”

He heard a quiet thump from behind him as Detective Reed fell to his knees in the snow. He didn’t look back.

He’d accomplished… something, and he’d learned a lot about Detective Reed, which was one of his main current objectives, but it

~~Didn’t feel right~~

Might have been a mistake to go outside. He’d just have to wait and see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who comments! I feel like this ended in the middle of stuff but it's already a super long chapter. Expect a continuation.... one of these days


	8. Bandage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cont'd tw for suicidal ideation and sum real bad angsty headspace stuff but overall a less angsty chapter?   
> back to Gavin's POV

You fucked it up.

Congratulations, Reed. You fucked it up really good that time. Really fucking good. Con-gratu-fucking-lations. Fucking brilliant you goddamn piece of shit.

Now just. Stop fucking whining and get up and go in the fucking house. For fucksake. Fuck. _Fuck_. Get up on your feet you useless fuck. FUCK. Just. Get up. It’s so simple you FUCKING USELESS

God

God why

Get up

_Get up_

The thing is going to come out again and check on you because you’re fucking endangering your fucking health like this just stop it

_Stop_

“…Phhck.”

His knees were going numb in the snow. He forced himself up and held his hands in front of him. His left was cold, stiff and pretty smashed up, but he could still move it normally. He put it in his pocket to avoid getting it even colder. His right hand was… starting to swell below the ring and little fingers, which he… well he could probably theoretically move them but he really didn’t want to try, which wasn’t a great sign. He sighed.

“Phck.”

Just another day in the life of Gavin Reed.

Now go in the fucking house you bitch.

He opened the door with his left hand, gave the robot a dismissive wave when it turned to look at him, went into the bathroom and started the annoying task of maneuvering out of his clothes with a probably-broken hand.

“phhck. Phck phhck phck phhhck phck AAaagh shit. …Phhck.”

“Detective?”

“I’m fine,” he yelled. “Go away.” Last thing he needed was the fucking tincan barging into the bathroom thinking he was in distress. Which he was, but he didn’t need any fucking assistance.

He tried (honestly, he did) not to get the water too hot because you’re not supposed to shock your body by warming up too quickly or whatever but he couldn’t really feel temperatures that well, everything felt hot to his cold cold hands and he was impatient so he just said fuck it and jumped in. The hot rain smoothed back his hair and clouded his body in steam. He sighed. Then he started crying again. It was fine. Wasn’t like anyone could see him and the gentle massage of water along his scalp felt really nice and

Shit. The thing had _touched_ him. He’d _let_ it touch him.

He couldn’t honestly decide how he felt about it. It gave him the creeps just to think about it, but it had shocked him for another reason, too, mostly that it had been a really long fucking time since anyone had actually touched him unless they were trying to cave his face in. Not counting the occasional fist bump or what have you from good old Tina. Tina was cool. Not super huggy, he respected that, he wasn’t either, usually. Anyway—

Why had it touched him? Not once, twice.

…Was it programmed for that? It didn’t seem as self-assured as usual. Oh, God, if it was fucking breaking its programming already just trying to deal with his shit ohhhh fuck there would be hell to pay with Cyberlife

“Excuse me, sir, how the _fuck_ did you manage to break our finest android in one week?” he mocked quietly to himself, splashing his underarms. “oh well I dunno I just acted like a lunatic around it and it fucking fried its circuits trying to calm me down I guess. Fucking brilliant. Just shoot me at the deviants and I’ll make ‘em self-destruct in confusion n loathing. It’ll be great.”

Not to mention Fowler. He’d be certain Gavin was doing it on purpose. Which he wasn’t actually, but there wasn’t really any way he could argue that, honestly.

He held his right hand up, forced it to clench, swore loudly and seized it at the wrist.

“Aaaah, shit.”

It was gonna be another long two months, he thought darkly.

Drying off with one hand was annoying, but doable. Then he realized he hadn’t brought any clothes in with him. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem because he had nothing but cats in his house, but he didn’t like the thought of that creature watching him walk around naked. Although, it had already seen him mostly naked. He didn’t much like that either. He’d kinda forgotten it was there.

“Hey robocop, you better not be in the fucking hallway!”

“Why not?” said the robocop voice, right from the fucking hallway. Gavin cracked the door and lo and behold it was standing RIGHT THERE in front of him, positioned specially to give him a fucking heart attack when he opened the door. Gavin glared at it. “Move.”

“…Where?”

“Anywhere. Just get out of my way, I don’t want you looking at my junk when I come out.”

“…ah. Understood.” It moved off down the hallway towards the living room. He waited a few seconds before sticking his head out.

The hallway was deserved except a small three-footed kitten who squeaked at him.

He scooped up his wet clothes for the hamper and scooted into his room, slamming the door behind him, which was honestly unnecessary, but he wanted to. Sometimes you just had to indulge your inner delinquent fourteen-year-old. Honestly sometimes Gavin doubted he’d ever actually grown up.

Okay, clothes. He kind of needed to be wearing clothes for the next part of his plan.

Honestly? Fucking… honestly, the _android_ probably didn’t care, he could just march out there completely fucking naked and talk to it like that, but he had SOME shreds of dignity left, in honor of which he hissed and swore and wriggled one-handed into some clothes, and in the meantime he thought about what he was gonna say and came up with nothing. Just… focus on the clothes. Get yourself decent first. He took one look at his jeans, decided he didn’t want to fiddle with a zipper with one and a half working hands, and pulled on some sweatpants. Shirt. Shirt? Something soft. That thing. Hadn’t worn it in a while. Dark red, very soft and nice, yeah, it’d be great OH GOD HE FORGOT the thing was kinda form-fitting which wouldn’t usually be a PROBLEM but narrow sleeves didn’t exactly make it EASIER for him to pull it on over his HAND

FUCK

Okay congrats you did it buddy you’re successfully wearing a shirt

(He knelt on the floor trying to twist his hand off at the wrist and muttering “phk phk phk phk”)

He got up and posed angrily in front of the mirror, legs wide, shoulders and elbows up in a weird overheating chicken kinda pose, and grimaced at himself.

Okay. Cool. Kinda nice slouchy weekend gremlin look. Soft hooded shirt and pants that looked like they were melting off his hips. Kinda digging the tight top—loose pants look? Not his usual thing—not that he’d worn any ~really~ tight pants in a good few years. …People would probably run away screaming now honestly.

“Society,” he told his reflection, T-posing, “has lost all sense of fashion. I am its last bulwark, and I am losing my faith.”

And I am stalling by talking to my fucking reflection to avoid going in there.

You know, you don’t actually have to do this. It’s a robot. It doesn’t deserve shit from you.

…Do it anyway. It’s the principle of the thing.

Do it.

He did the Shia Laboeuf pose at himself and whispered JUST DOOO EEET.

Do it. Do it?

Oh hey he still had his old splint from the last time he broke his hand around here somewhere didn’t he yeah that could be useful couldn’t it

It took him about five minutes to find it, and by then he’d resigned himself to his mission. He gritted his teeth, strapped his hand into the splint, and opened the door.

La Linda Princesa De Las Rosas Blancas, the beautiful, beautiful cat, was sitting there, tail tucked over her feet, waiting for him. She gave a squawk that she didn’t realize was terribly loud when he opened the door, stood up, raising her tail high in greeting, and then walked over and rubbed against his leg.

He did not start crying _again_. He did not. He was done with that. He had shit to do.

He picked the beautiful cat up and pressed her to his face. He brought her with him. She was purring, a warm soft armful of bravery pressed to his chest.

RKwhatever was on the couch, looking very stiff, angled to look towards him as he came in. He stopped in the doorway.

“Hey, android.”

 “Detective. You look better. That’s good.”

“Can I talk to you?”

“Of course.”

Gavin walked around the back of the couch and sat on the opposite end, settled deep into the cushions, and stared at the wall. Princess kept purring, the little angel, otherwise there would’ve been an awkward silence.

“Hey, so, uh. I don’t… really need to do this, I guess, since you’re a machine and all that, but fuck it, I feel like I should and anyway I need the practice. Listen…. Fuck. I’m shit at apologies.” Long pause. “So—I don’t know what you think about what happened out there but it sure as hell wasn’t your fault, you couldn’t have known I’d react like… that. Hell I didn’t know I’d—whatever. It’s—fuck. Saying sorry at this point just seems kind of fake, but honestly, this wasn’t my plan for the night.” He paused again and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m driving myself to the hospital and I’ll drop you off at the DPD on the way. Can you let yourself in?” He finally made himself look at the thing, and yep, it was just as creepy as he’d thought, staring unblinking at him with those icy eyes.

“… Yes, but I thought you meant to avoid leaving me there at all costs.”

“Yeah, well. Pretty sure I just proved I shouldn’t be alone with you either.”

“You’ve proved I need to adjust my behavior.”

“Uh, no, this isn’t a you problem, honey. There’s only so much adjustment you can do. I was… I thought I could get used to you, but it looks like I was wrong, so I’ll—fuck, oh, God, I’m not looking forward to talking to Fowler. Listen, I’ll get you reassigned.”

RK900 appeared to consider this, for all of two seconds.

 “I’d rather continue working with you.”

“OK well—hold up what the fuck? No, you would not.”

“I would, actually.”

“I thought you didn’t have preferences!”

“This isn’t a matter of sentiment, Detective. Judging from your recent work history you’re much more active than Collins, the only other detective currently active on the force. And I respect your methods. Also, even if I could be reassigned, it would delay work on the case. But these are preferable alternatives to you suffering a mental breakdown while attempting to adjust to my presence. Do you think you’re capable?”

Gavin huffed. “Well I mean I thought I was doing pretty good until tonight but we all saw how that turned out. I’d be less worried about me and more worried about you.”

“I disagree.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“First of all, I didn’t realize the extent to which my presence unsettled you until now, and I’ll be more careful not to startle you in future. Second, you were armed when I went outside.”

“…Yeah?”

“Why didn’t you shoot me?”

Gavin frowned. “I’m responsible for you. I…”

“So you have some degree of self-control.”

Gavin wheezed. “Oh, right! Great, amazing, do I get a fucking gold star that says ‘congratulations, you didn’t fucking SHOOT SOMEONE?’”

“Not someone, Detective. Androids aren’t people.”

“Yeah, OK, here’s the thing though I’ve used that argument too much myself and it’s tempting. Really tempting. Like, kinda scared me how quick I took to the idea the first time around. Did I tell you how I got on with former-you? What’s his name, Connor. The little dipshit. He scared the shit outta me because he wasn’t like the other androids, you could never predict where he’d turn up, and he looked like he thought he was a _person_ , it really fucked with me and you know what? I let it. After he left I got up one day and was like. What the fuck. Why the fuck did I let an android get under my skin that much. I uh—fuck, well, you probably can’t tell, but I _do_ make an effort to not go around just punching the shit outta everything that gets in my way, even if it’s not alive. Connor’s just so goddamned punchable I didn’t even question it until later and that scared me. I thought I was making progress. Guess not.”

“One failure doesn’t invalidate all progress. I happen to know that you threatened Connor with a gun for less than I’ve done tonight, so you _are_ making progress.”

“Ah, fuuuuk, you saw that? Do you, like, have his memories or something?”

“Not as such. I’ve seen a few of them. Recordings.”

Oh, well, brilliant. Amazing. The thing had seen him losing his shit at Connor over a fucking cup of coffee. What a first impression _that_ must have been.

“Why was me being a dick in the recordings? Like why was that important enough that they’d _show_ it to you?”

“…Probably as an example of the social situations I might have to deal with while working with humans.”

“Oof. Well. That must’ve been an ‘oh, shit’ moment, huh? Getting paired with me?”

“I’ll admit, I did not expect it to be an optimal arrangement, but I’ve amended my views since. I think we’ll make a good team once we get used to each other.” And it… tried to smile. God that looked weird, but Gavin forced a smile back. How lovely, they were both faking being ok with each other. Yikes.

“Yeah, that, that might uh, that might take some doing, unfortunately. Real bullshit that they put you with me, honestly. For both of us.”

RK900 nodded. “Why don’t you give it another day and then make a decision? You must be tired. In the meantime, what can I do to make you more comfortable?”

“…One day. Huh. OK. You really don’t feel fear, do you?”

“I have no need to.”

Wow. Sounded so simple. Must be a peaceful existence. People who said androids suffered were full of shit.

“God, that must be nice. Hey, question, I can like, give you orders and stuff right?”

“…Correct.”

“OK, this is a permanent thing, right, so make a note of it. If I attack you you’re allowed to fight back, got it? You don’t gotta just stand there and take it.”

“Understood.”

“Good. One more thing. You gotta wear that ugly-ass jacket all the time?”

“Correct. It is part of my uniform, all parts of which I am legally obligated to wear in public.”

“Yeah well we’re not in public.”

“…You are correct.” RK900 took his jacket off and folded it in his lap. The shining blue android identification marks were only on the outside layer, and the shirt was kind of a funky cut, but if you squinted it looked like a turtleneck, which wasn’t too weird. In general, he was a lot easier to look at.

“Great, thanks. Uh. Well, if you really want to stay I guess you can chill here, otherwise I don’t mind driving you back to the station. You made a decision?” He stood.

“Yes,” said the robot, “I’m staying. Why are you going to the hospital?”

“I mighta broke my hand.”

It frowned. “I thought you might have. Has this happened before? You obviously had the splint already.”

“Uh, yeah, it’s happened before. Boxer’s fracture. Not a big deal.”

“That’s a broken bone, Detective, I’ve been informed that it’s always a big deal.”

“Not really, I’m used to it.”

“…Strangely, that does not lessen my concern. Would you like me to drive you?”

“Nah, I can do it. Keep the cats company for me.”

“I will do that.”

“Cool. Well, seeya.”

He grabbed his keys and wallet, managed to shuffle into his jacket without hurting himself too badly (the splint was helping a bit), and went out to the car. Great, this was fine, he could do this.

He tried to get the keys in the ignition and ended up dropping them on the floor instead.

He stared at them.

That’s fine. It’s fine. Just stretch down and grab the stupid fucking keys. Use your good hand, it probably won’t hurt too much. Don’t be a baby. Grab the fucking keys.

He rested his head on the steering wheel and his arms on his knees. Maybe if he cut his fucking hand off it wouldn’t hurt like that. It was hard to imagine a clean cut hurting with the infuriating, throbbing, deep-rooted ache he felt now. Fuck it, maybe he should cut off both his hands. Maybe he should cut his throat. Why should he live in a body that only failed him?

He waited it out, he let himself sulk. He sighed.

“Fuck.”

He picked up the keys, started the car, and pulled out into the street.

One of these days someone was going to shoot him and he wouldn’t have to deal with this shit anymore. No more pain, no more questioning his thoughts, no more _fucking androids_.

Take a chill pill, you little shit, you’ve had a bad day. Nobody gives a fuck. Suck it up, buttercup. Which way is the hospital, you should know this.

Turning onto the next street, he caught a glimpse of himself standing on the sidewalk, looking after him, face a mass of open wounds. He didn’t bother looking.

“Fucker,” he spat. Of course.

He got himself to the emergency room without managing to make anything else go horribly wrong. Yes he had snapped a bone, no it didn’t need surgery, no he didn’t need any special treatment beyond keeping it in the splint and not straining it, praise the Lord. Looked like he was gonna be a leftie for a while. He asked how long it was gonna take to heal. He complained about not being able to use his hand for two months. _Yes_ he was interested in taking part in a clinical trial for some kind of magic new booster shot to help him heal a bit quicker, that sounded fucking amazing. Oh great, that would be another half-hour of signing forms, wouldn’t it. Fine. Whatever. He needed his hand. That was his shooting hand.

He started signing the consent forms and shit. Yes he understood that he was accepting treatment that had not been extensively tested yadda yadda, yes he would allow his medical data to be used for research, yes he gave Cyberlife the power to HOLD THE FUCK UP why is Cyberlife in my fucking hospital. Cyberlife owns the bone-unhurty-juice?

Cyberlife owns the bone-unhurty-juice.

Gavin’s eye twitched. He considered his options. He considered the possibility of three weeks’ faster healing time (maybe possibly if the lab tests were right™). He signed his name on the form.

God, he hated Cyberlife even more than he hated the stupid fucking androids. Seemed like the company had its greasy little fingers everywhere. What was it trying to do, take over the world? It had sure taken over the market. He didn’t much like that. It gave him chills.

Honestly, the androids, creepy as they were, hadn’t asked to be made; that was all Cyberlife’s doing. He should blame them for his nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Ah look, Gavin hates Cyberlife! One thing he and RK could bond over if our android boi were not deep deep deep in denial. 
> 
> So kind of a weird a/n here but a while back when I was just getting this story started I was up on this breezeway, right, I live on the third floor of an apartment/dorm building and there's like this little breezeway thing with balcony on both ends, and I was chilling up there looking down on the street side and this group of dudes walked past on their way into town, and there was this one dude in a wrist brace and hoodie shirt and sweatpants and I think he was holding a cigarette and my brain for some reason just latched onto his physical description and went "you are putting this in your story, you now associate this random man with Gavin Reed I don't make the rules" so yeah that's him in this chapter idk I don't make the rules


End file.
